


Reminiscence

by jess (jess_m)



Series: L'Histoire Ne Finit Jamais [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Awesome Donna Noble, BAMF Donna Noble, Donna is Donna, F/M, Major Original Character(s), Minor Original Character(s), Minor Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Multi, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, POV Third Person Limited, Tenth Doctor Angst, Tenth Doctor Era, The Doctor & Donna Noble Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-04-05 18:47:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19046257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jess_m/pseuds/jess
Summary: After a message from the future from a girl he's never met, the Doctor picks up Ariel Parsons and begins traveling with her begrudgingly, but can he keep himself detached from the girl who exists in the Tardis to serve one purpose?





	1. Prologue: The Bootstrap Paradox

**Author's Note:**

> You may recognize Ariel Parsons from past fics of mine and I'm not writing some spinoff or AU about her. I'm rewriting her story because I was looking back through it recently and I was unhappy with how it had progressed. It felt like she had gotten the bare bones of a story and as I am very attached to this character I decided to write her story again. I will be deleting her previous stories on this account, but if you want I can give the link to my fanfiction.net account where I will be leaving hers and a few stories I have deleted up.
> 
> I do not own any original lines, persons, or stories originally found in any works copyrighted under Doctor Who.

She crashed forwards past the console, tumbling down onto her hands and knees into the Tardis while her heart raced a million miles a minute. Cheap and nasty time travel was far from comfortable it seemed.

It took her a full minute to properly catch her breath as she slowly rose to her feet and peered around the grunge setting with dirty yellow lights and more columns than she knew what to do with.

“Right,” she breathed, her accent clearly London cockney even with her low tone. “I suppose this means it worked,” she mumbled. She spun around slowly and came face to face with her Doctor causing a thin smile to stretch across her face.

“What?” the Doctor gasped as he stepped forward and narrowed his eyes at her. Whoever this woman was, it appeared as though she had been through some sort of wreck. Her jeans were in tatters, her long brown hair was a mess, her tan cheeks were covered in dirt which fell down to her crop top. Her chest was still heaving as though she were running for her life even as she stood still.

However, the most interesting aspect of her wasn’t her attire but rather the vortex manipulator tied firmly around her wrist. The skin around the vortex manipulator was white telling him whoever had put that on her had done it frantically tight, desperate to ensure it would stay on whilst rushing to get it on her wrist.

The Doctor stepped forward, shaking his head aimlessly at her. “What?” He asked once again. He had never seen the woman before in his life so he couldn’t even begin to imagine why she might have shot straight for the Tardis with that vortex manipulator.

The girl scanned him with weary green eyes that made her look far older than she was. She smiled softly as she dissected his appearance. Dirty converses, his famous blue suit, a pale face, wild brown eyes that gave away his true age to no matter who looked, and constantly chaotic brown hair. Yet her smile was also wistful, as though she knew something that brought an air of sadness to his existence the Doctor couldn’t quite work out.

“She was right when she said you always look younger whenever you go back,” the girl remarked and the Doctor frowned, furrowing his brows at her.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Because I can promise you I’m really not as young as you’re thinking,” the Doctor assured her.

The girl smirked. “No,” she hummed. “You’re really not.” She took a deep breath and shook her head, upsetting her already unkempt hair that was so precariously tied up. When she met his eyes again, there was a strange hardness and determination set into them. “Never mind my reminiscing, I’m here for a reason, Doctor,” she explained.

“How do you know my name?” the Doctor frowned, taking a step back, suspicion wrapping around his self-preservation.

“I’m from your future,” she said. “I know you have no reason to trust that, but you gave me this,” she told him as she held up her wrist to show him the vortex manipulator. “Well, actually you ripped it off Jack Harkness’s wrist and insisted that I come back to this point, but same thing,” she shrugged.

“You know Jack?” the Doctor implored, taking a small step forward but not letting his guard down yet.

The girl huffed when she noticed the wall he still had up. “Yes, I also know you’re a Time Lord, this is the Tardis, I’ve met Rose Tyler, and Donna Noble and Torchwood and all of them. Can you trust me now?” She moaned. “I was never one for patience.”

“Rose Tyler is in a parallel world. You can’t have met her,” the Doctor said, narrowing his eyes at her once again.

The girl rolled her eyes. “Yeah, funny thing that,” she mumbled. “Look, I haven’t got much time. You need my help bringing the planet back so since I know you’ll likely be suspicious of anything I tell you and my sources, I’ll just tell you what you sent me for. You told me to tell you that you need to find me.”

“What for?” the Doctor frowned.

“Because if you don’t, she will die,” the girl told him bluntly. “I can’t give specifics because everything depends on you working this out later on, but I can tell you this: if you don’t pick me up and bring me with you the Daleks will kill her.”

“And how am I supposed to trust this?” the Doctor wondered. “How am I supposed to know this isn’t a message from someone who will kill someone I love?”

The girl groaned and rubbed her hands over her face, wiping away some dirt as she did so. “How can I make you trust this information?” She asked.

The Doctor thought for a moment with a small frown. “If you’re really from my future the only thing that could ever make me trust you if you told me something you can’t have gotten out of some database or The Library.”

The girl furrowed her brows as she traced her memory quickly, flipping through their past like the pages of a book. Once she fell on the right page, her eyes widened and she beamed up at the Doctor. “Rose Tyler; she got locked in a parallel world when you were fighting the Daleks and Cybermen. You burned up a sun just for the chance to say goodbye to her and it killed you. You didn’t want to take on another companion after her because you thought nobody could compare. You even got a talking cat and named it Rose,” she snickered. “But no judgment,” she assured him raising her hands in surrender when he glared at her. “Martha Jones; she left you because she fell in love with you. You hated yourself for that one too. Do you ever not hate yourself after a companion is gone? You think you ruined her but she did what she knew was best for her and left to have a better life. Far from ruining her, I should think,” she shrugged.

“Then the companions that never were. My favorite story was Sally Sparrow,” she smirked. “She was brave and managed to fight the Weeping Angels getting poor footage from some recordings in the sixties. You admired her quite a bit. You told me if the timelines had been right you likely would’ve taken her on as a companion and quite frankly I don’t blame you. She was astounding,” she smiled.

“How do you know all of this?” the Doctor demanded, glaring at her and she rolled her eyes.

“You told me,” the girl insisted, nodding to him. “You used to tell me all these stories when we were up late roaming the Tardis together,” she hummed. “I have insomnia, you see. I’m up most nights and finding out Time Lords don’t need much sleep was a happy surprise. I’m usually up all alone so it felt better than I can put into words to finally have someone to talk to.”

The Doctor eyed her for a moment as though if he waited long enough some big signs would point to her and tell him whether or not she as lying.

If that was the case the signs must have said she was being honest because, with a soft sigh, he turned back to the console and pulled the monitor before him.

“Okay, so I have to find you?” He implored, raising a brow at the girl. “Am I going to get a name, or?”

“I know you don’t want to take on another companion right now. Not so soon after Martha left but if things end up the same it will turn out alright,” she assured him. “At least I hope you think it’s alright,” she mumbled.

“It’s not that-,” the Doctor shook his head. “I never know how it ends and I don’t want it to end up with you being ruined like-.”

“You didn’t ruin Martha,” the girl moaned. “But don’t worry about ruining me, if anyone should be blamed for me getting ruined by all of this it would be me. I’m the one who jumps in headfirst.”

“That’s not it,” the Doctor frowned. “You give a kid a suitcase full of candy they’ll take it no matter how bad it is.”

“Are you implying I have less self-control than a child?” the girl scoffed.

“I hardly know you!” the Doctor exclaimed. He groaned and raked his fingers through his wild hair as he turned back to eye the monitor. “Never mind, am I going to get a name and place to start or-?

“Better,” the girl said, flashing him a quick smile. “I’ll give you a name and coordinates. Ariel Camille Parsons. The coordinates are,” she paused as she fished a piece of paper out of her pocket, “triple two nine one fifteen slash apple,” she read off.

The Doctor furrowed his brows as he stared at the coordinates. “Did future me give these to you?” He wondered.

“Yep,” Ariel sighed as she stuffed the paper back in her pocket. “I was never good with the coordinates bit. Everybody’s gotta have an Achilles heel right?” She smirked.

The Doctor turned to her and narrowed his eyes. “Why you?” He asked, his tone not exactly kind as he eyed her. He pulled out his sonic and scanned her and she rolled her eyes. “You’re not special. You’re not important. There’s nothing different about you,” he remarked.

Ariel clenched her jaw and shoved the sonic down. “Stop that,” she huffed. “I’m going to ignore all of that and just say I don’t know either. I asked future you halfway through our travels and you got to the ‘you’re special’ and ‘you’re one of a kind’ point in our friendship so you mostly rambled that off to me, but I did catch something about the Bootstrap Paradox?” She prompted with furrowed brows.

“The Bootstrap Paradox,” the Doctor hummed, fingers through his hair. He spun around as his mind ran through it. “It makes sense but is there really no other explanation?”

“Not in my time,” Ariel shrugged. “Who knows when we drag the planet back we may magically figure it out but so far the Bootstrap Paradox is what we have.”

“Right,” the Doctor nodded. “Well, any advice for the trip, er, Ariel?” He implored with a raised brow.

Ariel smiled. “Just a warning. It’s Christmas and while I don’t have the murderous Santas on my back, thank the gods, I do have the Weeping Angels, so you’ve got that to look forward to.”

The Doctor snorted. “Well, then. I best be sending you on your way and getting to it,” he sighed, plugging the coordinates he typed into the system.

Ariel grinned and nodded. She popped open her vortex manipulator and began typing. “Merry Christmas, Doctor.”

“I look forward to meeting you, Miss Parsons,” the Doctor hummed.

Ariel smirked. “Don’t look so dour, Doctor. We’ll have some good times and until then, au revoir,” she said.

The Doctor gave her a quick smile and waved as she jammed her finger down on the final button and disappeared from sight.

The Doctor took a deep breath and leaned against the console, plugging the final coordinates into the Tardis. “Right then,” he muttered. “Here we go again.”


	2. Aliens in London

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a hot minute. Don't hate me. I rewrote this chapter like four times.

_ Click! _ Ariel Parsons snapped another picture as her green eyes remained more trained on every little thing outside the window her professor was standing before rather than her actual professor. If her mother had been sitting there beside her she was almost certain she would have been smacked.

Ariel squirmed in her seat as she flicked through a few of the images to look back at them, her thumbs rubbing against the sides of the camera as though it were a magic lamp and a genie would pop out to grant her any three wishes. 

Flicking through the images, originally not paying much attention to the small details, she froze as she went back through them and something seemed out of place. There was something, foreign, new, wrong about the landscape outside that window. The same landscape she had found herself staring at and finding new pictures for a million times prior.

There was a statue she had never noticed before. She narrowed her eyes and zoomed in on the statue. It was some odd stone angel with its hands covering its eyes as though it was weeping. 

Ariel toyed with the buttons on the camera, internally debating whether or not it was worth her time to dwell on but eventually her gut instinct won out and she exited the gallery. Some little voice in the back of her mind kept pressing at her to dig deeper, investigate the stone statue as though it might jump out and bite her but for some reason logic won out when it never had before and she let it go.

The faculty likely just wanted to liven up the atmosphere by placing some artwork on the campus.

_ But a weeping angel?  _ The little voice in the back of her mind pried.

It’s fine. It should be fine. It was all fine.

Nevertheless, she still took a deep breath and raised the camera once again- this time her eye was seeking out the angel.

She eventually found it standing in the same place, but her heart began to pound in her ears and the blood rushed to her head as she inspected the entire angel.

The camera clattered to the floor and she heard what was unmistakably some piece of glass on it cracking.

She kept her eyes trained on her desk even as the class fell silent and the professor’s eyes sought her out as the source of the disturbance. Her breath was shaky and she couldn’t seem to still her hands.

Professor Begley cleared his throat. “Miss Parsons, is there something you would like to share with the class?”

Ariel struggled to find her breath and calm herself enough to even try to speak. “I- er, Nurse?” She implored with a raised brow.

She heard the class began to murmur about her and even a few muted laughs but she couldn’t care less. Her eyes moved up to find the professor’s dark brown ones and though she knew he was bouncing between amusement and confusion, he simply nodded.

“O-Of course,” he sighed, shifting strangely on his feet. Ariel jumped up out of her chair, grabbing her bag and camera in two swift movements.“Be sure to get the notes from someone before the-!” He called, but before he could finish the door to the class was slamming shut and Ariel was already running down the corridor.

Ariel fought hard against panic even as her heart continued to pound against her chest so hard she thought it might burst and her legs moved her so quickly she could have been flying down that corridor and nobody would be able to tell the difference, She tried to tell herself that she was just imagining things. Too many late nights with nothing but tea and her old photographs to keep her company had done a number on her brain. Professor Begley’s lectures never were all that interesting so maybe she was just creating things in her mind to fill the time with something other than him endlessly droning on.

But why would she make up something like this?

She shoved the front door to the university open and shoved her camera into her bag she marched outside, ready to confront a bloody statue.

Ariel stormed around to the side of the school where the statue had been and found it standing right where she had last seen it. However, just as she had seen in her camera, it had moved from the ordinary weeping angel into an angel whose face she could see with its hands cupped and away from its face.

Ariel tiptoed towards it, narrowing her eyes as she crossed towards the angel.

“Okay,” Ariel murmured. “I’m not mad. I know what I saw. You were weeping,” she insisted.

Ariel glanced around the area to make sure none of the faculty or gardeners were listening as she spoke to a bloody statue but when she turned back, she jumped out of her skin. 

The angel changed again.

Now, it had its hands out on either side of it and had turned to where she was approaching from its left.

Her heart pounding in her chest, she crept back a few steps as she kept her eyes trained on the angel. “What the fuck are you? Are you playing some stupid prank? Is this supposed to be funny because newsflash, I ain’t laughing.”

She continued to move backward, barely even blinking as she watched the angel but without looking to see where she was going she completely missed the stone in the middle of the pavement. The stone caught her heel and she tripped, landing right on her back and giving the angel just enough time to move closer to her- its brows now furrowed together as though it were trying to understand her.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit!” Ariel screeched, scrambling back to her feet.

As she climbed to her feet, she spotted something else just behind her. On the other side of the street, if she narrowed her eyes, she could see another angel.

“Oh, hell no,” Ariel mumbled. 

Ariel jumped up and practically crawled away from the first angel as she could feel it staring at her as if someone had just walked over her grave. She clutched her bag tightly like it might be able to magically transport her away as she rounded the corner and found a third angel, this one seemed to be snarling at her.

“What do you want?!” Ariel cried. “I’m not in whatever stupid prank you’re pulling so just leave me be!” She screamed.

The angels didn’t really seem to care as she turned for a fraction of a second and found her first angel snarling at her as well.

“Shit!” Ariel shrieked, but before she could bolt across the street, she felt a tug on her coat. She turned and saw the first angel had grabbed hold of her coat before she even had the chance to run.

Ariel felt hot tears begin to burn her eyes as she started to accept her fate while the other two angels moved steadily closer.

The second angel she had spotted was moving along the street across from her, a snarl on its face as well as it spotted the pray. The third angel she had spotted was quickly making progress across the street she was on to try and get to her while the angel holding her had an ironclad grip on her coat.

That was until she heard some odd noise fill the street. It was as though someone was using a particularly loud leafblower, but with an alien groaning beneath the typical sounds that cried out for it to be replaced. Accompanying the sound across the street, a blue box seemed to fade in and out of existence.

At first, Ariel wanted to rub her eyes and tell herself it was a figment of her imagination, but then again she was being held captive by statues so she wasn’t exactly in a position to question things that shouldn’t be possible.

The box landed or materialized and the door creaked open revealing a man donning seriously scuffed up Converses, a handsome blue suit with a large brown overcoat that screamed he was from anywhere but this century, a flushed complexion tinted ever so slightly pink due to the cold, soft brown eyes that seemed to age him thousands of years despite his fairly youthful exterior and brown hair that seemed to stick in every single direction possible.

The man’s brown eyes met hers and he held out his hand. “Come with me before they touch your skin!” He cried.

“What happens when they touch my skin?!” Ariel panicked.

“Don’t stay and find out, just come with me!” He hollered.

Ariel pulled back against the angel holding her coat and winced when some of her hair yanked with it. “The statue’s got me by the hair!” She screamed.

The man cursed and rolled his eyes before bolting across the street. His brown eyes flicked around the scene, likely assessing how screwed she was and when he arrived he ran a hand through his already wild hair, somehow managing to mess it up even more. 

“Keep your eyes trained on that one next to the box,” he instructed, pointing to the Angel still across the street but gradually moving closer until it could be standing right in front of her. “Try not to blink,” he advised.

“What happens when I blink?” Ariel wondered.

“They move,” the man muttered.

“That fast?”

The man clenched his jaw while his eyes kept darting between the second angel she had seen slowly moving closer and the angel holding her captive. “Listen, I’m not particularly elated that I’m here right now so if we could skip the bit where you ask all the stupid questions that’d be lovely, thanks,” he spat and Ariel winced.

“Ah, real charmer, you are,” Ariel muttered.

The man wiggled her hair slowly out of the angel's fingers while he rolled his eyes. “Didn’t your mum ever teach not to insult someone when they’re saving your life?”

Ariel grit her teeth as he sighed and ripped all her hair out of the angel’s hands quick like a bandaid. “Typically, my mum told me people who’re saving my life don’t make a habit of insulting the people they’re saving so, no to answer your question she left out that next lesson.”

The man cursed. “Why am I not surprised?” He mumbled. “Now get out of that coat, we haven’t got all day and they’re slow but if we count on that they’ll get there in the end.”

Ariel shoved her bag off her shoulder and held it with her right hand as she shrugged out of her coat. Once she was able to stumble out of the angel’s grip, she threw her bag back over her shoulder and the man hurried to steer her towards his box.

“Keep your eyes on them for as long as you can. If we can get back to that box, we’re safe,” he explained.

Ariel nodded numbly, biting her tongue against the millions of questions she so desperately wanted to ask as she focused on keeping her eyes on the angels.

Once they crossed the street, the man opened the door and practically shoved her inside the box before scrambling in after her and slamming the door shut.

Before she could even speak to try and ask his name, the man ran past her and her jaw dropped as her eyes followed him and realized just how big this box really was.

It was like something out of a science fiction movie as there was some sort of control console in the center, all sorts of round things on the walls, yellow grunge-like lighting around the whole place, and wires dangling from the ceiling hooked up to things she couldn’t even spot.

“Wh-Wh-?” Ariel breathed.

“Go on,” the man moaned, leaning against the control console. “Out with it?”

“This is-,” Ariel mumbled, furrowing her brows as it all sank in. “Wow,” she breathed.

The man narrowed his eyes. “That’s it?” He implored, raising a brow at her. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“Oh, I’ve got a million questions but first I’ve got to say this is the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen in my life!” Ariel exclaimed. She held out her arms and twirled around a bit with a short giggle. “Be honest,” she instructed, holding up a finger to the strange man and stopping herself for a moment. “Am I dreaming?” She asked. “No,” she shook her head before he could even open his mouth to respond. She pinched herself and winced in pain. “Not a dream. I think,” she frowned. “Does that really work? Would you know?”

The man clenched his jaw and glanced down at the console. “It does, now if you don’t mind since you don’t seem to have any questions at the moment I’m going to get us out of here before those angels try to attack my Tardis again.”

Ariel didn’t bother to ask what a Tardis was as he fiddled with some controls and she heard the wheezing again. He had warned her about stupid questions and she was fairly certain that would be a stupid question. 

The ‘Tardis’ as the man had called it rattled her around a bit like bad turbulence on an airplane but she clung to one of the railings leading from the front door to the console so when they landed she turned out just fine.

The man took a deep breath and turned to her with his hands on his hips. “Okay, where do you want to start?”

“Name seems as good a place as any,” Ariel sighed, shrugging nonchalantly. She fiddled with the sleeves on her shirt and looked anywhere but his eyes. She didn’t have any clue how to process the last, what? Ten minutes? 

Okay, she had seen an angel move in class. Strange but she could learn to cope with that with a half-decent explanation. The angels tried to attack her. Again, with a decent explanation, she could be able to wrap her mind around it.

Maybe, they were government experiments. Maybe, all the conspiracy theorists were right and they were aliens that were invading England. Maybe, they really were just dumb university students looking for a good prank.

However, that still doesn’t explain the box that appeared out of nowhere and was somehow bigger on the inside. Still, she found she could be able to accept that with the amount of science fiction she had watched.

The one thing she couldn’t wrap her brain around was this strange man that appeared. He dressed extremely well for a man who seemed to deal with this sort of thing if his casual mention and understanding of the angels was anything to go by. Not only that but he seemed oddly angry with her. As though they had already met and she did not leave a good impression.

The man sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his hair again. She suspected that might be something he did when he was stressed. “The Doctor,” he answered her.

Ariel glanced up and narrowed her eyes at him. “Your name’s the Doctor?”

“Got a problem with that?” the Doctor retorted with a raised brow.

Ariel snorted and shook her head. “No, that makes just about as much sense as everything else that has been happening,” she sighed. “Okay,  _ the Doctor _ -.”

“No,” the Doctor chuckled softly and shook his head. “Just ‘Doctor’,” he explained.

Ariel winced and she felt her cheeks burn at the mistake. Of course, it was ‘Doctor’. Nobody calls a Doctor,  _ the  _ Doctor.

She gulped and tried again. “Okay, Doctor, next question: what did you mean when you said you weren’t particularly elated to be there? Or here? Or whatever the proper way of saying this would be,” Ariel moaned, rubbing her forehead and willing the ground beneath her feet to stop swaying.

The Doctor sighed and hung his head. “I got this message. It’s sort of hard to explain-.”

“Well, try,” Ariel snapped. The Doctor met her eyes with wide brown ones. “Listen, I’m normally a nice person and I’m certain if we met anywhere else in any other circumstance you’d see that but I just got attacked by statues and a man came out of a box that appeared from thin air, saved my life, and basically said he didn’t want to be with me before kidnapping me and taking me away from school.”

“You were at school?” the Doctor frowned.

“University,” Ariel huffed, shaking her head. “I’m in my second-year and-,” her head snapped up as she realized what was happening. “Don’t change the subject!” She hissed.

“I wasn’t trying, I just-,” the Doctor rolled his eyes. “Look, I barely know more than you do. I got a message from someone in my future. Someone I trust. She told me where and when to find you and even though I didn’t want to she said it was necessary. I just followed her instructions.”

“Someone from your future?” Ariel frowned. “What, is time travel just possible now and I’m behind on this breaking news?”

The Doctor smirked and shook his head. “No, I’m an alien. A Time Lord more specifically. This is my time and space machine,” he said, gesturing to the room around them.

Ariel leaned back against the railing and nodded as she slowly digested this. “Okay, so someone from your future gave you a message where and when to pick me up in your time machine and told you I would be ‘necessary’?” She frowned. “Is that supposed to mean I’m just some spare part you pick up to help a car run or something because if that’s the case, thanks for saving my life but you can drop me back at my mum’s house and we can call this a day.”

The Doctor sighed and shook his head, running his fingers through his hair. “No, that’s not what I meant, I-.”

“You, what?” Ariel implored, stepping forward and narrowing her eyes at him as a new wave of confidence burned through her. “You just really didn’t want to have anything to do with me but are begrudgingly getting involved, is that it? Because far be it from me to waste the time of some exciting and interesting alien who has a million things he’d rather be doing.”

“I don’t mean that,” the Doctor huffed. “I meant-.”

“What, Doctor?” Ariel asked. “What do you mean? Because I think what I’m saying is exactly what you’re really thinking and you’re just trying to be the better person acting like that’s not at all what you’re thinking.”

The Doctor clenched his jaw and inhaled deeply. He pushed himself off the console and turned to glare at her, a dangerous fire burning in his eyes. “And what if that’s what I mean, hm? Are you really going to ignore the fact that someone from our future is telling me you need to be here?”

Ariel scoffed. “I didn’t get that message. For all I know you’re some crazy person who roped me into this stupid prank students were playing that I became the victim of.”

“Really?” the Doctor prompted, tilting his head as though she was a curious little puppy. “After the whole ‘bigger on the inside spiel’ and the box that appeared from thin air you think that?”

“I don’t know what to think!” Ariel screamed, tears beginning to burn her eyes once again. “Ten minutes ago I was an ordinary student taking pictures out the window instead of focusing in class. I noticed that stupid bloody statue had changed its face and rather than leave it alone like any sane person would I went out to look at it. Now, I’m here in a spaceship with an alien telling me that I was destined to be here and it’s feeling like I’m cracking so please just explain this to me in a way that makes sense and I don’t burst into tears.”

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her and rather than give her the explanation she wanted, he turned back to the console and began fiddling with some controls.

“Doctor,” Ariel sighed, slowly dragging her feet to him. “I’ll admit. I can explain away the box appearing out of thin air. Maybe, it’s like that famous thing magicians do where they make something appear and disappear or change how it looks with mirrors, but the box I can’t explain away and if that’s the case then maybe everything you’re saying is true but I want to understand this or I might combust.”

“Why did you go outside to the angel?” the Doctor wondered and Ariel bit back the urge to groan at the man.

Ariel clenched her teeth and spun around, running her fingers through her hair and yanking at the brown ends. “What?” Ariel muttered.

“Why did you go outside to the angel?” the Doctor repeated.

Ariel spun around to him and narrowed her eyes, trying to work out whether or not he was having her on. When she decided his question may actually be genuine, she took a deep breath and shrugged.

“I dunno,” Ariel mumbled. “I wanted to see if I was losing it?” She guessed.

“No,” the Doctor smirked, shaking his head at her. “That’s too easy. You know there’s another reason,” he persisted. “What is it?”

Ariel furrowed her brows as she tried to push away all the insanity she was enduring at that moment to think back to what was running through her mind when she asked the professor to go to the nurse.

“I-,” she hesitated. “I wanted to see why the angel had changed.”

“Why?” the Doctor implored.

“I wanted to know what it was. Ordinary statues obviously don’t change, so I wanted to know why that statue did.”

“Did it ever occur to you that it might be dangerous?” the Doctor wondered. “That the statue wasn’t some friendly human in paint trying to take the mickey?”

“Of course,” Ariel shrugged. “I’m not that thick.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because I wanted to know and I didn’t care that there was a potential risk because somewhere deep down I knew if I carried on with classes and didn’t try to investigate I’d hate myself.”

The Doctor smiled brighter than she had seen since they met and pulled a lever on the console securing a landing after Ariel hadn’t even realized they’d left again.

“Where are we?” Ariel asked.

Rather than verbally respond, the Doctor gestured vaguely towards the door. 

Ariel narrowed her eyes at him, silently wondering what he was playing at but not bothering to voice the question for a little voice in her mind told her she knew he wouldn’t answer. Instead, she turned and crept to the door. She opened it slowly, then all at once when she spotted where they were.

“Oh, my gods!” Ariel screamed.

They were in the middle of space. Stars shined bright around them and in the distance, she could see several planets if she squinted. Right beneath them, was planet Earth and she suddenly felt so very small as she looked down upon the world she had inhabited all her life.

“Wha-How?” Ariel breathed.

The Doctor came up behind her and held the door open as she stared everywhere she could. “Before you ask, I’ve extended the air shell so we’re safe.”

“I figured you wouldn’t take me here just to suffocate to death but then again you never know,” Ariel muttered and the Doctor chuckled softly. 

“This is all real,” the Doctor murmured. “I know it seems impossible but it is. I’m an alien and those statues you encountered- they’re aliens as well.”

Ariel turned to glance up at him and froze momentarily as she realized how close they were. They were centimeters away from their chests touching though he still seemed to loom over her. She squirmed at the proximity. She had never been good in situations like these, being so close to someone so attractive. It always made her mother laugh growing up. 

Ariel was one of the bravest people in the world when it came to so many things that would make the stomachs of ordinary people turn but the little things? She couldn’t handle it and was reduced to nothing more than a squirming ball of anxiety. 

She wasn’t sure if the Doctor noticed this or just got sick of her because he closed the door with a sigh and marched back to the console.

“What-,” she cleared her throat and shook her head, trying to regain that strength she once had. “What do the aliens want?”

“These aliens want to feed. They were slower than I’ve seen so far which makes me believe they were hungry,” the Doctor answered, fiddling absently with controls on the console. “The Weeping Angels, that’s what they’re called by the way, they feed on time energy. That means they touch you and they send you back in time feeding on all those years you would have lived through ordinarily.”

“Okay,” Ariel frowned as her mind scurried to unfold the information in a way she could understand. “So, if one of those angels had properly touched be and I had been sent back to, say 1940? They would be feeding off the energy I would have had if I had continued living out life here and now while- what happens to me in the forties?”

“Nothing,” the Doctor shook his head. “That’s what's so strange about the Weeping Angels, they’re one of the only races I’ve found that kills you kindly. You could easily start a new life in the forties, fall in love with someone, get married and build a family.”

“I’d just die of old age or some other cause before I can even begin to live through the years I would have normally had,” Ariel assumed.

“Exactly,” the Doctor nodded.

“Alright,” Ariel sighed. “I think I can wrap my head around that, but what I don’t get is why they were at the university?”

“Haven’t quite worked that bit out yet,” the Doctor hummed. “Have a few theories but none of them add up completely.”

“Well, let’s have it then,” Ariel nodded to him. She marched over to the console room and plopped down on one of the seats.

The Doctor turned to her with narrowed eyes, strangely seeming suspicious of her words, but she simply nodded to him once again. She knew they were in a time machine but they didn’t have all day. He smirked and spun back to the console.

“Okay, first theory: they’re a scavenger group. The angels typically hunt in large numbers from what I’ve got not a group as small as three. These angels may have split off from the rest and are scavenging food where they can. It’s been a while since they’ve found a food source hence why they were so slow,” the Doctor explained.

“That would make sense if it didn’t raise the question of why they’d break off. I grew up with this obsession over wolves. I planned to study them in uni until I realized I enjoyed getting pictures of them more than studying their habits. Creatures will typically stick around food and rarely break away from a meal they know they can get. Why would the angels break away from where food was assured to fend for themselves?” Ariel wondered.

The Doctor eyed her with something twinkling in his old brown eyes that she couldn’t quite name but it seemed to put a smile on his face so she didn’t both to try and send it away. 

He frowned and shook his head, running his hand across his face and groaning. “Because they thought they could do better?” He proposed. “No, no, that doesn’t make sense,” he grumbled. “Maybe, we need to scout out the school more and see if we can spot any more angels.”

“Doctor, I’ve been all over that school. Those angels just appeared today. I thought when I first saw the one I told you about it was just the faculty putting new statues up but now that I know what they are I know they weren’t there before.”

The Doctor winced. “Okay, so it’s most likely just these three. What do they need? Why here? Why now? Why on winter- Shouldn’t you be on a winter holiday?” He implored, turning to raise a brow at her. 

Ariel froze for a moment, briefly taken aback by the sudden shift in focus to her but she quickly recovered and shrugged. “I live with my mum just a few blocks from the school. My photography professor tends to hold discussions on breaks and invites students to get extra credit for coming.”

“Is that allowed?” the Doctor frowned.

“No idea,” Ariel scoffed. “But I hardly ever pay attention so mum forces me to get all the extra credit I can. Why, what does that matter?”

The Doctor narrowed his eyes and pulled out a strange metal tube with a blue light on the end. When he pressed a button on it the device made a whirring sound as he pointed it up and down her body.

“You’re a broke uni student who doesn’t pay attention in her classes and went to a potentially dangerous moving statue because she was curious but so far nothing’s screaming special or important,” the Doctor muttered, his brows furrowed as he stopped pointing the tube at her and lifted it up to peer at it.

Ariel knocked the tube away from his eyes. “Are you this rude all the time or is it just a special occasion for me?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes and spun away, something in his eyes and the way he stood that he seemed to be trying to tuck out of sight. “Nevertheless, we’re going to need to find these angels again and see if they’re working with larger numbers or are some sort of splinter group.”

“What if they were left behind?” Ariel wondered.

The Doctor whipped around to her with wide eyes. “What?” He breathed.

Ariel squirmed under his gaze suddenly feeling like a specimen under a microscope. “I just mean, you said you’ve encountered these angels before, right?” She implored and he nodded. “Well, what if these angels were part of that group or somehow involved with them? You stopped the others, but you missed them. They were just the ones left behind. Maybe, they even wound up trying to run from what happened to the others and wound up without steady food sources for however long it's been so they gradually got slower and slower until they were the angels we just came across.”

The Doctor eyed her carefully as he digested everything she was saying, slowly beginning to nod his head as he thought. “That’s-That’s surprisingly a good idea,” he remarked.

“Oh, well don’t get too excited,” Ariel grumbled, clenching her jaw against his stoic reaction.

“No, no, it’s good,” the Doctor assured her. “Just unexpected.”

“You’ve known me for ten minutes and you already have expectations of me?”

“I have expectations out of everyone after ten minutes, especially you.”

“Why?” Ariel huffed. “You said it yourself nothing’s special about me so why are you treating me like my very presence is letting you down?”

“I told you,” the Doctor frowned. “I got a message from the-.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Ariel snapped. “A message from the future saying you needed to find me but why act like I’m some great big disappointment when you don’t know anything about me? You don’t even know my name.”

“Ariel Camille Parsons,” the Doctor responded and Ariel’s heart stopped. “Born June 12th, 1989 to Camille Dubroc and Benjamin Parsons. Originally from Paris, France but moved to London when you were just three years old. Your father died in a car accident when you were ten and since his funeral nothing exactly notable since you’ve started uni majoring in photography. Am I missing anything?” He prompted, turning to raise a brow at her.

Ariel stepped back and scoffed at him. “I should’ve known you would look me up. I barely know you, Doctor and yet it feels like I know just the sort of man you are,” she huffed. “Tell the future message to fuck off because I’m not going to work with you or do your bidding or whatever you want from me. Take me home and rest assured I won’t go running to the presses about how I met an alien. It’d get me sanctioned even if I wanted to.”


	3. The Last Survivors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has not been fully edited for content! It will be edited completely at a later date I just wanted to post it sooner rather than later.

The Doctor landed the Tardis right back on the street where he had picked her up and when she stepped outside she frowned at the entrance to the uni where the angels had once been. 

The class had ended and she could see the other photography students clambering out and heading down the street in small groups, but the angels were nowhere to be found. 

Ariel clenched her jaw. She knew that little voice in her head was going to itch at her to figure out what happened. To try and stop the angels. She didn’t want to listen. She knew that if she asked about the angels she would want to help the Doctor and she wasn’t going to sit back and listen as he belittled her and dismissed her just because he didn’t mean to have her around. 

As though she was to blame for him suddenly popping into her life.

Ariel took a deep breath and groaned. There was no fighting this. If those angels popped up again she would hate herself for letting him leave and doing nothing. She spun around and glared at him as he leaned over the console, virtually unperturbed by her internal struggle.

She kind of hated him for that.

“Where are they?” Ariel grumbled.

The Doctor glanced up and raised a brow at her. “Mm?”

“Where are the angels?” Ariel huffed. “They were there and now they’re gone. Right as everyone is leaving too.”

The Doctor smirked briefly and it was gone just as quick as it appeared but she spotted it nonetheless and felt a stab of self-hatred for allowing her curiosity to get the better of her. 

“They move,” the Doctor responded.

“No, really?” Ariel scoffed. 

“They’re fast, Ariel,” the Doctor muttered. “Faster than you’d believe. They can move within a blink of your eye.”

“But these weren’t,” Ariel reminded him. “They were slow. That’s why they didn’t get me even though I didn’t know I shouldn’t blink. Why would they leave when all those students are food sources for them?”

“Because there’s so few of them. If they were in their usual numbers they’d be able to take on a handful of uni students without an issue but they’re slow and outnumbered. More than one would be able to slip away.”

“So, what?” Ariel frowned. “They’re just going to play the waiting game and pick people off one by one?”

“Most likely,” the Doctor shrugged. “It’s their best shot and they’re quite patient. You could stare at them for ages and they’d remain stone but eventually, you’ve got to blink and they know that so they’re more than willing to wait for that moment.”

“But they’re starving,” Ariel reasoned. “Wouldn’t they be more desperate to get food?” 

“Desperate but not reckless. They know what risks to take. They took a risk with you so out in the public because it seemed like an easy meal-.”  
“Thanks for that.”

“All they have to do is wait for another opportunity like that,” the Doctor explained, continuing to speak as though she hadn’t interrupted him. 

Ariel froze as she remembered the only person that would have any reason to stay in the university alone. “My professor,” she murmured.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her. “What?”

Ariel inhaled sharply and flung the Tardis door open. “My professor. He’s still in there. He’s probably going to be grading the extra credit assignments. He’s normally the only faculty in the west wing- right by where I saw that first angel.”

The Doctor exhaled and pulled out the metal tube. “Show me!” He snapped.

Ariel hurried after him as they marched across the street to the entrance. She tried to open the door but when it slammed against the lock the Doctor aimed his tube at it. The blue light flashed on and it whirred once again. All of a sudden, the lock clicked and she was able to watch the door swing open.

She bolted through with the Doctor but she couldn’t help herself as her gaze wandered back to the tube in his hand. “Are you gonna tell me what that is?” She wondered.

“Oh, this is my sonic screwdriver. It comes in very handy for opening and closing things,” the Doctor smirked.

“And scanning things?” Ariel guessed. “Why would you choose a screwdriver of all things to make sonic though?” She wondered. “I’ve seen the movies they usually have sonic weapons to fight against the bad guys with, but a screwdriver?”

“Yeah, I don’t really do the whole weapon thing,” the Doctor hummed. “If you’re going to travel with me you should know that right now.”

“Oh, who said anything about traveling?!” Ariel scoffed. “I know,” she decided. “Your future message girlfriend claimed we become best mates in the future didn’t she?”

“No,” the Doctor frowned. “That’s not-I’m not-.”

“And she strikes gold!” Ariel exclaimed with a laugh. “I knew there was some reason you kept bringing up that you got a future message, who would’ve thought I got it on the first go though?” She snorted. “Now, come on,” she said, bumping the Doctor gently. “Let’s go save my prat of a teacher.”

“You don’t like this bloke then I take it?” the Doctor assumed.

“Oh, he’s the worst,” Ariel assured him with a nod. “He’s the worst because he couldn’t care less about me or what I want to do as a photographer.”

“Doesn’t that go against the job description?” the Doctor frowned.

“You’d think,” Ariel snorted. “I was so enthusiastic about the first few months of class. I thought I could impress him and get him to take me under his wing but he just kept dismissing everything I put on his desk. Eventually, I confronted him because I wasn’t going to sit back and let him ignore me when I’m trying to get a career in this and he just told me that I’m not as good as I think and even if I were it’s still extremely difficult for a woman like me to get into this field.”

“Charming,” the Doctor hummed.

“I’ll say,” Ariel smirked. “Now, over here is his off-.”

She was cut off by the sound of panicked yelps within the office. 

“Professor!” Ariel hollered. She tried to turn the doorknob but it was locked. The Doctor whipped out his sonic as she frantically twisted it like that might unlock it without the help of the screwdriver. 

Eventually, they managed to shove the door open and in both corners of the opposite wall, there was a Weeping Angel snarling at Professor Begley. He whipped around to look at them with wide, teary eyes and the Doctor opened his mouth to warn him when the one angel neither of them was looking at crossed the room and touched Professor Begley’s neck.

He disappeared on the spot.

“Shit!” Ariel exclaimed, jumping backward and feeling her heart momentarily plummet into her stomach.

“Run,” the Doctor mumbled, training wide eyes on the angels.

“Doctor, there are only two angels here,” Ariel murmured. “There were three around when I was attacked.”

The Doctor’s eyes widened and he grabbed her hand. Without speaking or even trying to let her into his thought process, he tugged her through the corridors not even bothering to look back at the angels that were undoubtedly following them.

“Are they stronger now that they took Professor Begley?!” Ariel exclaimed.

“Not enough to reach their full potential but they’re certainly on their way,” the Doctor hummed. “Is there any other faculty in this building?”

“There might be but they’d be on the opposite side of the building. Professor Begley always liked having an entire wing to himself. That-oh, that’s weird,” Ariel furrowed her brows. “How can I remember him if he was zapped back in time? Shouldn’t my memories of him be gone?”

“The closer you are to a person, the harder it is to erase the memories- especially if you know it’s the angels that got them,” the Doctor huffed. “Now where is the other angel lurking?” He wondered. “I doubt it’d be on the other side of the building getting meals for itself. Scavenger groups tend to hunt together.”

The rounded the corner towards a corridor that lead to the back exit and low and behold, to answer the Doctor’s question the angel was standing before the exit as though it had just captured someone trying to run out.

“Oh, you had to ask,” Ariel huffed. 

The Doctor spun around, tugging her along with him, practically pulling her arm out of its socket as he tore down the corridor. “Okay, plan, plan, plan, we need a plan.” He glanced back before Ariel could have a chance to speak and offer some sort of suggestion and by the way his eyes widened she decided she didn’t want to see what he had seen.

The Doctor skidded to a stop in front of a pair of double doors. With one last look over his shoulder, he shoved Ariel into what she quickly realized were the kitchens. He bolted in after her. His eyes darted around the room until they landed on a broom leaning against a wooden stool in the corner. He grabbed both items and shoved the stool under the metal handles of the doors while the broom when through the handles.

The Doctor sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his hair. “That should hold them for at least a minute.”

“A minute?!”

The Doctor turned to her and gave her that look that screamed she had just asked another stupid question. She winced. 

“They’re stone, Ariel.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do?” Ariel huffed. “How do we fight stone?”

The Doctor messed up his hair and slowly began to yank at the ends as he paced the kitchen floor. “We can’t force them to look at each other within the university because then they’d be stuck here. A paradox could risk destroying the university and there isn’t exactly a way to bring that about right now,” he muttered.

Ariel narrowed her eyes as she listened to him. Her life had descended into sheer madness in less than twenty-four hours and yet there was strangely a part of her that didn’t feel like screaming and running for the hills at the sight of all this. It excited her. It pumped her body full of adrenaline and made her feel like she had finally gotten the call to adventure she was certain everyone yearned for but silently accepted they would never receive in their lifetimes. 

Even stranger, part of her felt a need to prove herself to this ‘Doctor’. She worried that if she didn’t prove she was intelligent and courageous he would never welcome her into this odd world of fighting evil aliens as a full-time job. She needed to prove she could handle this and not only take care of herself but save them.

 She thought about what he said. Their options seemed to be forcing the angels to look at each other or making some sort of paradox and seeing as she had no idea how to make a paradox, she decided to ask about the former.

“What would happen if they looked at each other?”

The Doctor glanced at her with furrowed brows and a hint of surprise dashed across his face as he likely didn’t expect her to actually be listening to him. “They, er, they would be stuck in time. Pure stone. Incapable of moving any longer.”

Ariel looked down and took a deep breath as she thought on how they might o about achieving this. “Okay, so clearly we can’t do that inside the school but what if we did it just outside the school? They could stay out there like decorations or whatever in the yard of the university.”

“And how do you suppose we go about that?”

“I could lure them out,” Ariel shrugged and the Doctor’s eyes widened. “They were already after me before you arrived. If I lure them out into the yard you could figure out how to get them to look at each other, couldn’t you?”

The Doctor stared at her, unmoving for a full minute before gradually he began to blink again and she could see the wheels in his mind turning with the information she had presented him. His hands moved back to his hair as he messed it up and began to pace.

“If I materialize around you and we can get the angels in a circle I could do the same thing we did with Sally, but-,” he froze and shook his head. “No, no, no this is how it always happens. This is how they go.”

Ariel tiptoed up to him with furrowed brows. “If it helps this is my choice. I mean I’m absolutely terrified of those things out there because I know you said they kill you kindly but the idea of having my life ripped from me and being forced to start from scratch is absolutely horrifying,” she sighed.

The Doctor eyed her warily. “So, why are you willing to do this? Why offer yourself up?”

“Because even though I barely know you I hardly doubt you’re the sort to just swan off in the Tardis and let me die,” Ariel shrugged. “If that were the case you would have left me to the angels the first time. I can see that you’ll try as hard as you can to save me and really that’s all I need.”

“You could just as easily run out and leave me to handle this, you know?” the Doctor implored with a raised brow. “I can handle the angels, I’ve done it before. You can head back to your mum and pretend none of this ever happened.”

“Oh, that’s not me,” Ariel scoffed. “If you met my mum she’d tell you just the same. I’m ‘perversely stubborn’ to use her words,” she smirked.

“Well, good to meet you ‘perversely stubborn’,” the Doctor smiled. “But are you sure about this? I can’t promise I’ll get it right.”

“Well, if I end up being zapped back in time by these things at least do me the favor of telling my mum I died trying to save the people I’ve moaned about since I’ve started classes here,” Ariel sighed. “I mean I don’t love them but they don’t deserve to go out like this. Nobody does.”

The Doctor smiled strangely at her as though he were some teacher finally beginning to see potential in a failing student. “Ariel Parsons, you may not be such a nuisance after all,” he hummed.

Ariel furrowed her brows but she realized that with the way he’d been speaking to her since they met that was actually one of the nicer things he had said. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she shrugged. “Now, where do we start?”

As if to answer her question, there was a loud thud on the door that made her heart drop into her stomach. When they both turned, the angels were standing before them- all wearing menacing smiles that made Ariel want to throw up her last meal.

“Well, I would say get them all together but it seems they’ve done that for us,” the Doctor sighed.

Ariel rolled her eyes. “Yes, this is very much the time for cheap laughs,” she muttered bitterly.

“Oi, if we’re going to travel together you’re going to have to get used to it,” the Doctor huffed. “Now, I’ll get anybody else out of the building and head into the Tardis. We need to keep everybody out of here in case your plan horribly backfires. Bring the angels out the last exit we saw but remember to keep looking at them. They’re faster now that they’ve eaten and could take you by surprise,” he instructed. “Also, get them into a circle. That’s the only way we’ll be able to get them all frozen.”

“Right,” Ariel sighed. “I can do this,” she breathed. 

The Doctor smiled thinly and placed his hand on her shoulder giving it a firm squeeze. “Good luck,” he nodded to her.

With that, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver-for what she couldn’t understand, and bolted past the angels but to his luck, they didn’t chase after him. Ariel wasn’t sure if they knew who he was or where he was going and decided it was hopeless but they definitely seemed to want to finish the meal they were robbed of earlier. 

She summoned all the courage she could and forced herself to be brave staring down the barrel of a gun no matter how much she wanted to curl into a ball and cry. Who would she be if she just cut and run now? How would she look at herself? She didn’t want to live with a big ‘what if’ in her head for the rest of her life. Even worse, she didn’t want to live with the possibility of the angels sending the Doctor back and nobody being left to stop them from sending every single one of her classmates back while she sat at home and did nothing. 

She would feel pathetic if she ran and hid. She would be pathetic and her mind would always remind her of that every time she entered the university. 

No, she was brave and she would prove that to herself. 

Ariel took a deep breath and clenched her fists so tightly her nails might have been cutting into her skin. She wouldn’t know. She was hardly focused on anything but her racing heart.

“Okay, kids, I know how this works so let's take it one step at a time,” Ariel muttered. 

She kept her eyes trained on the angels as best she could, winking between each eye to keep them open as she shifted around one of the angels to escape the kitchens. Once she was out of the kitchens, she squeezed her eyes shut before turning away from the angels and bolting down the corridor. 

Although she wasn’t looking back she could practically feel them getting closer and making goosebumps rise across her skin. 

She got halfway down the corridor running before she spun around and met each of the angels with wide eyes. They froze in place and she had to admit a little piece of her as elated at the fact that they were a bit further away from her than she had assumed. They weren’t breathing down her neck and were in fact, snarling at her from a few feet away with their hands raised and sharp claws at the ends of their fingers.

Ariel sighed softly and willed herself to spin around again and put herself in danger knowingly. She ran faster this time and when she reached the exit she didn’t stop for a second as she shoved the door open and bolted outside practically tripping over herself as she did so.

Once again, she spun around to look at the angels and found them right in the walkway of the exit with the door open for them. 

Taking slow, steadying breaths she walked backward gradually until she felt she was far enough away to feel safe.

“Alright,” she breathed. “How am I going to do this?”

She furrowed her brows. Maybe, she didn’t need to get them into a circle. It would be extremely hard to ensure three angels were looking at each other as opposed to four. She took a deep breath. If she could get one of the angels to look at itself that would make things so much easier. 

She just needed a reflective surface. She glanced around the garden quickly so she wouldn’t be keeping her eyes off the angels for too long, racking her mind for any sort of reflective surface and her eyes widened as she remembered. There wasn’t any sort of reflective surface in the garden outside of the windows, but Professor Begley always kept a hand mirror in his desk for creating gorgeous effects with the sun in his photos. He made a habit of regularly chastising his students for not thinking ahead as he did.

All she had to do was make it to the window leading into Begley’s class without the angels reaching her. 

Ariel clenched her jaw and began walking backward so she was facing the angels while still making her way to the classroom window. It didn’t take long and as she winked to keep at least one eye open whenever her eyes began watering, she was able to keep her eyes on angels. There was that and the little detail that she was far too petrified to even consider blinking.

She shoved the window to the class up and took a deep breath. She was going to have to crawl through the window without the angels reaching her which meant she had to be faster than she had ever been. 

She used the adrenaline pumping through her veins to her advantage and leaped through the window without bothering to hesitate or overthink it too much. If she spent all her time worrying about it she would be gone before the Doctor could even try to help her.

Ariel fell through the window, her head hitting the chair before Professor Begley’s desk as she collapsed onto the ground. 

She groaned and rubbed her forehead, taking just a few moments to process her pain before scrambling to her feet once again and looking out at the angels. The Doctor was right. They were moving faster than they had before and she only had a few feet of room to climb back out of the window again and force one of the angels to look at themselves.

Keeping her eyes on the angels, Ariel scooted along the desk until she reached the top left drawer. She fumbled for a moment before pulling open the drawer and grappling for the mirror. 

When she finally gripped the mirror, air flooded through her lungs and she felt like a drowning woman learning to breathe once again. 

She wasted no time crawling back out the window and running up to the nearest tree. She glanced back at the angels to keep them in place before bowing down and practically ripping her shoelace out of her shoe.

Ariel tied one end of the shoelace around the end of the hand mirror and the other end of the shoelace around a smaller branch, tightening it as quickly and tightly as she could before turning back to the angels.

“Alright, kids,” Ariel hummed, unable to fight the smirk on her face. “This is the fun bit.”

The angels were all reaching out towards her with their claws, snarls etched across their stone faces as they stood in a row. 

Ariel decided to trap the angel furthest to the left because even though the angels were all about the same distance from her, the angel furthest to the left was just a couple feet ahead.

Ariel furrowed her brows. How was she going to move only one of the angels? If she looked at two of them but not the left angel would that move it?

She silently cursed. The questions she never thought to ask the Doctor turned out to be the ones she most needed to know. 

Ariel took a deep breath. She decided it was worth it to try. After all, she was already being hunted by the angels- it couldn’t get much worse. 

Ariel turned and focused her gaze directly on the center angel and the angel furthest to the right, purposefully looking away from the left angel. 

When she looked back she grinned as she found the left angel mere inches away from her.

It worked.

With that in mind, she began falling into a pattern of looking between the two angels and the angel she was trying to trap whilst walking backward until she was standing just in front of the mirror and the angel was happily eye level with it. 

When Ariel decided they were close enough, she looked at the other two angels and ducked down so her angel was face to face with the mirror. 

Ariel looked back at her angel and wanted to scream with joy. She trapped it. It was stuck in the same place looking at itself.

“Yes!” Ariel screamed, pumping her fist in the air. “I did that! I did that on my own,” she chanted as she danced by herself. “I did that on my own!”

Her happiness was cut short when the other two angels appeared about a foot away from her face.

Ariel grit her teeth. “I forgot about you two,” she grumbled.

Okay, she had to guide them far enough away from each other for her to be able to stand between them and the Doctor to land the Tardis, but she had to make sure the Doctor was even in the Tardis otherwise she would be touched and sent back in time.

Ariel ran a few feet to get a better look at the entrance to the school to see if she could spot any of the faculty running out of the building and like a blessing, she saw the Doctor waving the school nurse out while other faculty followed her. As the few people ran, the Doctor bolted across the street to the Tardis.

Ariel took a deep breath and turned to the angels. She headed back over to them and took about a minute to get the angel on her right further away. 

Just as she moved between the two angels, she heard the Tardis wheezing and groaning once more and smiled. 

The more she listened to it the more she found she was beginning to like it.

Ariel closed her eyes as the sound grew louder and when she opened them once again, the Tardis had reappeared around her and she turned back to the Doctor with a smile.

“I trapped one of the angels in a mirror,” Ariel told him, unashamed of her need to gloat.

The Doctor snorted. “Not bad,” he remarked. 

“That’s it?” Ariel huffed. “Not bad? It was bloody brilliant if you ask me. I nearly got pinched diving through Professor Begley’s window.”

Before the Doctor could respond or even properly congratulate her as she hoped she deserved, the Tardis rocked roughly and she went tumbling into the railing.

“What was that?!” Ariel exclaimed.

“The angels,” the Doctor groaned, flicking the controls on the console much more furiously now. “I reckon they’re not exactly delighted at us hiding away in the Tardis.”

“I thought you said when you materialized here it would be over?” Ariel implored with a small frown.

“I never said that. Never once did that leave my mouth. No, once we leave it’ll be over. The angels are obsessed with the Tardis and while they’re still around they’ll do whatever it takes to get inside.”

“Can they?” Ariel frowned. “Get inside, I mean.”

“Not with the shields up,” the Doctor assured her. “The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried. Now, shut up a minute.”

“Oh, I kill an angel and he tells me to shut up,” Ariel moaned. “Brilliant.”

The Doctor fumbled around with the controls for a moment longer before eventually, the Tardis began wheezing and instinctively, Ariel grabbed onto the railing by her side.

The Tardis rocked as it dematerialized and tumbled around a bit but eventually, the Doctor landed them somewhere and everything steadied. 

“Right,” the Doctor sighed. “That wasn’t as much of a headache as I assumed,” he said, turning to her with a small smile.

Ariel furrowed her brows as she looked at him. “What happens now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean is this the part where you drop me off back home and I’m supposed to forget everything that happened? Tell nobody? Never bring it up again for as long as I live?”

“Why would I do that?” the Doctor frowned. “Sure I wasn’t too happy with the idea of bringing you along but anybody that manages to stop an angel on their own at least deserves the option of whether or not they’d like to come with me.”

“And do what?” Ariel wondered, shaking her head aimlessly. “Risk my life? Stop bad aliens only to get minimal praise for it? Live around here knowing you don’t exactly love the idea that I’m here to stay? What sort of life is that?”

The Doctor sighed deeply and hung his head. “I’ll admit I was a bit harsh earlier but that’s only because it’s been too difficult. The last two people I took on. They didn’t end very well.”

“Oh, no don’t give me an excuse,” Ariel snapped. “If you wanna take me on to travel and stop the bad guys with you I think that’d be brilliant and I’m sure there are very few people that would disagree with me. However, no matter how cool this may seem I’m not going to do it if the only reason you’re taking me on is that stupid bloody message from your future girlfriend. I’m certainly not going to do it if traveling with you is just going to be this. Me arguing with you and you being bitter constantly. It’s not fair to either of us and forgive me if I’m of the mindset that traveling with someone, no matter where it is or what you’re doing, there should be just a bit of fun somewhere in the equation.”

The Doctor narrowed his eyes and met her green ones with a small smile tugging at his lips. “I truly want you to travel with me. Not because of the future message or anything like that but because I need someone like you by my side in this Tardis. It’s a lonely old life and it could do much better with two,” he hummed.

Ariel watched him carefully, obviously trying to measure whether or not he was having her on and not bothering to hide that fact. Gradually, she began to realize there was no reason why she shouldn’t believe him and she felt her heart soar.

“As long as you can get me back every now and then so people don’t declare me missing and legally dead, I’d be more than happy to.”

The Doctor barked out a laugh and turned to the console as Ariel skipped up to his side. “So, Ariel Camille Parsons, where would you like to start?”


	4. Number 1, Gallows Gate Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and the next chapter are based on the prose on the BBC website. Here's the link if you want to follow along though be warned some of it has been changed due to Ariel's presence. Some of this chapter and the next chapter are also directly derived from that prose so let it be known I do not own whatever you can find on the original prose. http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/features/stories/fiction_number_one_page/page/1
> 
> This story follows along with the Doctor's canonical travels as posted on the tenth doctor's wikia. However, occasionally, I will skip a few journeys if I don't have enough information or can't write it out as I've done here. Sometimes events will be changed to accommodate for Ariel's presence but most of the time they will follow canon.

The first thing the Doctor heard when he woke was the sound of something tapping at a window. Thoroughly confused, the Doctor looked around him. It was dark, apart from a line of light that seemed to edge the bottom of a door.

The Doctor rolled out of bed - surprised to find himself wearing pajamas - and, squinting through the gloom, could just make out the room's sole window. It was covered with black material, pinned around the frame. There was a small wooden chair beside his bed where his clothes were neatly folded and despite his confusion, he changed into the brown suit and tie.

All of a sudden, there was a knock at the door and a woman with short brown hair donning; a light blue button-up shirt, a black belt, a light skirt, knee-high socks, and flats. Her short brown hair was pinned up with a few flyaway strands and in her arms, she carried a tray with a teapot and two empty cups along with a cup of sugar cubes.

“Morning, Doctor,” the woman smirked, placing the tray down and pouring the tea into one of the cups. She plopped two sugar cubes inside the filled cup and handed it to him with a smile.

The Doctor glanced between the cup and the woman with wariness in his eyes and a wall up, blocking her from reading all his senses. “Who are you? How do you know my name?”

The woman winced as if he had dealt her a blow he couldn’t quite understand hurt. 

“I’m Ariel. Ariel Parsons?” She implored with a raised brow, but he aimlessly shook his head. 

“Oh, blimey, you really got a number done on you,” Ariel murmured, placing his cup of tea back on the tray. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“How do you know something’s wrong with my memory?” the Doctor frowned, growing ever more suspicious of this strangely kind woman.

“Because I was the first person you talked to when you started losing pieces. You brought us here and I don’t know what happened but your head started hurting and then all of a sudden you couldn’t remember basic things I was talking about. I thought it might pass or maybe it was something in the area and if we got back to the Tardis you’d remember but when I had to remind you who I was three times in a row I decided we’d better tuck in for the night and get started on this in the morning. These people were kind enough to let us in when I was practically carrying you inside, unable to really explain what was going on.”

The Doctor furrowed his brows as he tried to process what she was telling him. “So, I really know you?”

“Yes,” Ariel insisted. 

The Doctor sighed deeply and rubbed his temples. “Okay, what about the Tardis? Is she-?”

“Safe,” Ariel assured him with a nod. “Not anywhere close to the bombs according to what you told me when we landed.”

“The bombs,” the Doctor furrowed his brows. “What bombs? Where are we?”

“Nineteen-forty,” Ariel answered cooly. “Second world war. We’re in some boarding school, I don’t really remember the name of it but they’re offering us breakfast if you’d like some. Maybe afterward we can head back to the Tardis and try to figure out what’s going on.”

The Doctor took a shaky breath and nodded. “Where-Where is-?”

“I’ll show you,” Ariel said with a smile. 

She was being mysteriously calm and kind to the man who couldn’t remember a thing about her. He didn’t know if he had known her all his life or she was lying when she claimed they knew each other. Even her name was flickering in and out even though she had told him only moments prior. He was scared and though he didn’t know much about himself he did know one thing: he did not enjoy feeling as helpless as he did at that moment. 

Ariel looped her arm through the Doctor’s and with a gentle grin she guided him out of the room and within seconds they ran into a new boy. He had close-cropped ginger hair and a bright smile. 

“Oh, hello Robert!” Ariel exclaimed. “I was just taking him to get some breakfast. I reckon he’ll be more than grateful to your mum for the food,” she chuckled.

Robert laughed good-naturedly and the Doctor just stared at him with wide eyes before turning to Ariel.

“Do we know-?” He whispered in her ear.

Ariel winced. “Robert introduced himself last night along with his mother, but I believe the Doctor was too drowsy to keep it in his memory so if you don’t mind-,” she prompted, waving to the boy.

Robert immediately stiffened and turned to the Doctor, beaming from ear to ear. 

“I’m Robert. Robert Mann,” he introduced, sticking his hand out to the Doctor.

The Doctor sighed softly and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Robert Mann,” the Doctor replied as he shook Robert’s hand. “Or meet you again, I should say.”

Robert continued to smile for a moment before waving the pair of them forward towards the staircase. “Come on then, or we'll be late for breakfast.”

As they descended the staircase, Robert rambled on about how odd their appearance was in the dead of night with Ariel toting the Doctor in her arms, begging for a place to stay for the night. She wasn’t able to tell them what was wrong, just that she needed two rooms. 

“Why did you choose this place?” the Doctor wondered, turning to Ariel with a small frown. However, before she could answer- his face went slack and he smiled as though he didn’t have a single worry in the world. “Oh well, who cares?” He shrugged. He paused. “Hold on, that’s not like me,” he muttered, furrowing his brows in thought. Then the worry vanished from his mind again. “It’s nice here. Maybe we should stay,” he smiled.

Ariel watched the Doctor, flooded with worry and anxiety in her bones. Something was seriously wrong with the Doctor and she didn’t have the slightest idea how to help him. She knew how to take care of someone with memory loss and be calm and understanding even as they struggled with memories of those there to help them as her nan had been afflicted with Alzheimer’s before the woman’s untimely death.

However, she didn’t have the faintest idea on how to save an ageless alien from memory loss he should not be experiencing in the first place. 

Things had seemed fine when they first arrived in the forties. After defeating the angels, she and the Doctor had argued on where the best place to visit was for about two hours before the monitor on the console set off some kind of alarm and the Doctor proclaimed they wouldn’t be able to decide where they went now because the Tardis detected an unstable space-time manipulator which disturbed the very existence of the universe. 

The Doctor used the Tardis to pursue it and it wasn’t long before they discovered they were racing to get the manipulator against somebody else.

He called them the Slitheen and gave a very loud and hurried explanation of who they were as sparks shot out of the Tardis and the poor machine spat out her distaste for the race at the Doctor.

_ “Before the last woman, I traveled with I was with a woman named Rose Tyler and she-!” _

_ A spark shot out of the Tardis and he slammed a stone hammer he left sitting around the console for some strange reason, into the console.  _

_ “Hold on do you just solely travel with women?!” Ariel exclaimed, clinging onto the railing for dear life as the Tardis spun out of control. “Are you some intergalactic rolling stone?!” _

_ The Doctor rolled his eyes and ignored the jab as he continued. “They-They smashed a ship into Big Ben and wanted to kill everyone on Earth to sell it to the highest bidder. They’re sort of big and green and have made a habit of wearing skin suits.” _

_ “What was that last bit?!” _

_ “Oh, they’re gaining on us!” the Doctor hissed. _

They chased the space-time manipulator to a planet the Doctor called New Earth, the lunar surface, and the London Blitz before eventually they caught it and destroyed it.

They returned to the London Blitz despite the Doctor’s grumbling that it was the worst place they could hope to find a fun journey because Ariel was completely fascinated by the concept of being able to go back and watch history unfold whereas so many had to resign themselves to reading it in books, hoping to grasp a real understanding of events. 

Then the Doctor began moaning of a headache and what was supposed to be nothing turned into her caring for an amnesiac alien.

They reached the bottom of three flights of stairs and Ariel began explaining to Robert that they didn’t exactly have a proper bed to sleep in because they travel too much to have a proper place to settle down.

In modern times it wouldn’t be very believable considering one could just go into a hotel, but the second world war was another universe entirely.

Robert solemnly nodded his head in understanding and smiled faintly. “I wish I could travel,” he hummed. “I want to be an explorer when I grow up. Just like Marco Polo. He discovered spaghetti.”

“And pinched my caravan!” the Doctor cried, looking at the boy like it was the greatest offense in the world anybody would ever try to be like Marco Polo.

“You’re very strange,” Robert remarked.

Ariel snorted. “Isn’t he?”

“It’s been mentioned,” the Doctor grinned.

They headed to the dining room in the back of the house, with glass-paneled doors leading to the garden. 

Seated around the oval table were five people. A young lady, a young man, an elderly lady, a stout, middle-aged gentleman and, at the head of the table, a skinny woman in her late thirties.

Robert quickly took his place and Ariel headed to one of the two empty spots the thin woman had told her she left open for guests. Ariel would have jumped to introduce the woman to the Doctor if she hadn’t known the Doctor likely figured out from the woman’s ginger hair that she was Robert’s mother. 

The man had worked out her personality within ten minutes of knowing her, even with the memory loss Ariel couldn’t see any reason why he didn’t hold the same talents.

“Please be seated,” Robert’s mother said brusquely, gesturing the Doctor towards the seat beside Ariel.

The Doctor plopped down and sighed deeply. “I’m famished!” He proclaimed and Ariel giggled.

She doubted this was a side of the Doctor many people saw. He didn’t seem to remember much of what Ariel assumed had made him into the strange, mysterious and slightly intimidating alien she had originally met. With the memory loss, he very much seemed like just another bloke. 

She knew very well that he wasn’t but he seemed much easier to get along with like this as opposed to the man who eyed her like a science experiment he couldn’t quite figure out how to finish every time he thought she wasn’t looking.

“You can introduce yourself to the other guests,” Mrs. Mann instructed. “Miss Parsons already has and seeing as you already know Robert you best get started with the others.”

The Doctor furrowed his brows and Ariel smiled softly, placing a gentle arm on his shoulder which under normal circumstances, she was certain he would have flinched from. 

“I’ll help you out with a spotter’s guide,” Ariel chuckled lowly. 

After the guests had helped themselves to modest portions of watery scrambled egg, the apologetic clatter of cutlery on china began.

A stout man with a blotchy complexion and a mustache that drooped over his mouth sat down across from the Doctor and began tucking in.

“That’s Major Woolly,” Ariel whispered in the Doctor’s ear. “Very stereotypical army man. Not much to discuss there other than the war.”

“So, you're a doctor, Mrs. Mann tells us,” Major Woolly hummed, stuffing his mouth full of eggs, but not bothering to swallow as he spoke. “Doctor what?”

“Do you know, I can't seem to remember right now,” the Doctor mumbled.

“It’s just the Doctor,” Ariel interrupted as she too ate the watery eggs. “Just call him the Doctor.”

“And you must be the Nurse I take it,” Major Woolly hummed.

Ariel choked on her eggs.

“What’s the poor fellow come down with? Shellshock?” He proposed. “Terrible business, I'm sure. I knew a chap got it in the last war.” He paused to ruminate. “That was a war all right. Not like this one. Fought it with our bare hands.”

The Doctor watched the man across the table with wide eyes. “Must have been uncomfortable,” he remarked.

“Don’t mind the Major,” Mrs. Mann sighed. “He’d love to teach Mr. Hitler a thing or two. Wouldn’t you, Major?”

The Major gave an unintelligible grunt and carried on with his breakfast.

Sat to his right was an elderly woman wearing a large feathered hat. When Ariel found the Doctor exchanging more than one friendly but confused glanced with her, she put down her fork to introduce the two. 

“That’s Miss Sillington,” Ariel explained. “She’s nice from what I could gather but more than a bit out there. Not that it’s an issue,” she shrugged.

“Welcome to our humble little guest house,” she beamed. “I always call it a guest house, though strictly speaking it's a boarding house. I've lived in Sydenham since I was five years old. Then I lost all my money in the big crash. Moved in here in '33. Oldest resident.”

Ariel noticed as the Doctor’s gaze kept wandering back to her hat and had to stifle a laugh. She couldn’t blame him. Not many people chose to wear a large feathered hat to breakfast and it was bound to draw eyes, though a part of Ariel couldn’t help but believe that was the point and she admired Miss Sillington for that.

Ariel wasn’t exactly the sort to place her identity and potentially strange interests out for the world to judge and mock. Though, when you got to be as old as Miss Sillington it was likely that somewhere along the way you just stopped caring what people thought or had to say.

“I’m seventy-four, you know,” Miss Sillington added as though she were reading Ariel’s thoughts.

Along the table, Robert giggled and Ariel looked to him. She pulled a quick funny face and made him laugh harder which made Mrs. Mann smack the table and turn to Robert with a poison gaze. “Eat your egg,” she snapped.

Ariel noticed as the Doctor caught Robert’s eye and gave him an encouraging wink making her smile. He was genuinely kind and fun-loving behind the intimidating alien and she was elated to see that persona cracking out amidst the memory wipe, even as she knew she had to help him get his memory back whatever it took.

Ariel took a deep breath and introduced the two remaining guests. Each greeted the Doctor with a polite nod but remained silent. 

Miss Gibbs was probably in her early twenties. Timid-looking, she had fair hair and wore an Argyle sweater. At her side, and appearing equally bashful, sat Clive Plympton. About the same age as Miss Gibbs, he kept his head down throughout the meal, fixing his plate with a worried frown. Every once in a while, when she was sure no one was looking, Miss Gibbs would throw Mr. Plympton a shy glance.

Just then, the dining room door swung open and a hefty woman of about fifty barged in, wearing a food-stained apron and carrying a tray.

“You lot finished yet?” She asked in a gravelly voice.

“Very nearly, Miss Baxter,” Mrs. Mann replied curtly.

Mrs. Baxter ignored her and began collecting plates, whether the food on them was finished or not. “Oh, and we've no gammon for lunch,” she announced. “All out of ration coupons. It'll be luncheon meat again.” And with a dismissive grunt, she was gone.

“Oh, luncheon meat makes me sick,” Ariel moaned, grabbing some orange juice and filling the glass Miss Baxter had neglected to grab. She rose to her feet and pushed her chair in before marching down the table.

“You’ve had luncheon meat?” the Doctor frowned, still seated at the table as though he wasn’t quite sure what to do without his breakfast.

“Loads of times,” Ariel muttered. “My dad had some obsession with it. Said it was perfectly good meat and cheap to boot. I failed to mention that perfectly good meat had me puking in every toilet I came across after I ingested it.”

The Doctor winced and clutched his stomach as though he could feel what was awaiting Ariel when lunch rolled around.

“That woman,” hissed Mrs. Mann, after a suitable pause. “It's long past time I dismissed her. The food. The attitude. One of these days I'll get round to it. And that's not the only thing. The house needs a good spring clean, too. And as for Lofty... He certainly needs cutting down to size.”

“Who’s Lofty?” the Doctor asked with a small frown. “Your husband?”

Ariel bit back a snort of amusement. She knew he couldn’t help it because he didn’t know better but the idea that Mrs. Mann would loudly announce at the table her husband needed cutting down to size was more than hilarious.

Mrs. Mann hung her head and Ariel winced. She didn’t even think of the fact that the Doctor may have opened a can of worms on the subject of Mrs. Mann’s husband.

“Mr. Mann is deceased, Doctor,” Ariel told him softly. 

The Doctor’s face fell and she could see the regret washing over his face as he realized what he had done all too late.

“Lofty is the oak tree in the garden,” Robert explained quickly to spare them an awkward moment. “Mother's been meaning to cut it down for years. It blocks out all the light to the back bedrooms.”

“Why don’t you then?” the Doctor asked.

“No one ever does anything here,” Robert muttered.

“That will do,” Mrs. Mann snapped frowning at him.

“It’s true though,” Robert huffed. “Nothing ever happens in this house!”

Ariel couldn’t help but agree with him. All the knowledge she had derived from the house had been from Robert himself as he rambled it all to her before she went to bed and when she came back from the Tardis after fetching her and the Doctor’s clothes in the morning. He had been bouncing with the newfound ability to talk to someone that wasn’t a resident of that house and she was hardly one to pass him up on it.

After all, with the Doctor deposed it was up to her to figure things out as quickly as possible and try to save the day.

Ariel looked to the Doctor and she could see him beginning to process the atmosphere and something about the way he looked at Robert told him that even though he had only been there for breakfast, the Doctor was already beginning to understand what was so worrying about the place and agree with Robert.

Ariel caught the Doctor’s eye and he raised a brow at her to which she responded with a firm nod. They both felt the air of stagnation and immobility within the place.

“Leave the table at once!” Mrs. Mann barked at her son.

Without a noise of complaint, Robert placed his napkin down and vacated his seat. He slipped from the room without a single word.

Just then, the clock on the mantelpiece struck ten.

Ariel didn’t even hesitate before she placed her glass of orange juice down on the table, smacked the Doctor on the arm, and headed towards the corridor with the amnesiac alien scurrying quickly behind her.

Almost immediately, they ran into Robert and he jumped on them to begin the questions.

“Where are you from, Doctor?” Robert asked with an excited smile stretched across his face. “Ariel already told me she came from France and moved to London when she was little, but what about you?”

“Oh, nowhere you’ll have heard of,” the Doctor hummed. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and shut his eyes. “I can’t even remember what I’m doing here.” He turned to Ariel. “Why did you choose this place?”

Ariel was taken aback by the question. It made her feel like the Doctor was investigating despite his memory loss and she couldn’t help but admire that. He had his temper and she’s wanted to throttle him more than once since meeting him, but he was smart.

“It was the first place I saw,” Ariel shrugged. “I couldn’t make out any other place around here in the dark so I didn’t know if they’d have beds but I spotted this place and I knew they likely would.”

The Doctor nodded, seeming satisfied with the answer as he turned to Robert. “What is it about this place?” He asked.

It was Robert’s turn to be surprised by the Doctor’s sudden interrogation. “I don’t know,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Yes, you do,” the Doctor insisted.

“I do?” Robert prompted with a small frown. His face went slack for a moment as he tried to work out the Doctor meant but eventually, he sighed softly and Ariel could practically see the lightbulb going off. “Yes... I think I know what you mean. All the residents are hopeless, aren't they? I want to be an architect, but they don't want to do anything.”

The Doctor beamed at the child and Ariel couldn’t help but grin at the two men as well. Maybe, somewhere in the persistent dull nature of this boarding house, they could find an answer to the Doctor’s memory loss. It was a long shot but it was worth a try.

“Exactly!” the Doctor cried, grabbing Robert by the shoulders. “And it means we have a lot of work to do, Robby-boy. So let's get to it!”

The Doctor grabbed Ariel’s hand and bounded off up the stairs while she giggled at him. Robert, on the other hand, was left dreadfully confused at the bottom of the steps.

“Get to what?!” Robert hollered.

“Questioning the guests, of course,” the Doctor sighed. “You take the Major and Miss Gibbs. Ariel will speak to Miss Sillington and I’ll take Mr. Plympton.” He paused, frowning. “One of them is not what they seem,” he hummed.

 

* * *

Miss Sillington had taken off her hat. Apparently, breakfast with two strangers was the occasion for the outlandish feathers but sitting in her small, sparsely decorated room was not. 

However, despite the proper decorations there were plenty of paintings done by what Ariel assumed was Miss Sillington herself and not some other individual named M. Sillington.

“These are amazing,” she breathed as she looked through the paintings. “I love your style,” she hummed. Ariel made her way through the paintings but froze at the sight of one painting in particular.

Ariel had only glimpsed quickly at the tree in the backyard, Lofty, as it stood outside her own bedroom window, but she could easily tell this painting was of that very tree. There was something strange about it. Something that made the hairs on the back of Ariel’s head stand on end. 

It was in a completely different style than all the other paintings in the room. It was total realism and yet that wasn’t what made Ariel uneasy. 

She squinted at the date in the corner. Nineteen-thirty-three. 

None of the other paintings in the room had been painted after that tree. She felt sick to her stomach. Something was seriously wrong about this boarding house and she had a sneaking feeling it had to do with that bloody tree. 

“This is your most recent painting from seven years ago,” Ariel remarked, turning back to the elderly woman and gesturing to the painting as though the woman needed a visual reference. 

“Just after I took up lodgings here,” Miss Sillington nodded.

“But why stop after the tree?” Ariel wondered. “I mean you obviously have a talent and yet I haven’t seen another painting or even the beginnings of a new painting around the room.”

“Well,” she began, but her face went slack and she frowned. There was a long pause where Ariel watched Miss Sillington expectantly only to get no response. “I don’t really know,” she confessed. “I just... lost my confidence. Who'd be interested in my little daubs? I'm hardly going to be a famous artist now. I'm seventy-four, you know.”

“Seventy-four or a hundred and four that doesn’t change the fact that you’re brilliant,” Ariel hummed. “Talent is talent and somebody somewhere is going to see that.”

“When I was your age I lived just two streets from here,” Miss Sillington mused, clearly caught up in her own thoughts. “There was a lot of talk about this house back then.”

“What sort of talk?”

“No one would go near this place,” she hummed. “They said the house was cursed. All nonsense, of course. Merely rumors,” she scoffed. Miss Sillington frowned as if she was trying to remember something but couldn’t quite reach the topic in her mind.

“Well, in my experience people usually have a reason for being afraid of things, especially if they start rumors of a curse about it,” Ariel remarked.

“You can’t seriously believe…,” Miss Sillington trailed off, breathing deeply and furrowing her brows as if she lost something she can’t quite remember. “It is a very strange house,” she admitted at last.

 

* * *

As the clock over the hearth struck noon, the Doctor, Ariel, and Robert all swapped notes on the people they had spoken to.

Major Woolly was just as confused as Miss Sillington seemed to be and could quite place his finger on why he wasn’t out in the midst of the war. He certainly wasn’t too old for it nor did he have any sort of medical ailment stopping him. He just didn’t understand why he was still there and his only reasoning was that he, “just couldn’t.”

Miss Gibbs took the train into the offices of a small publishing house, to make notes on unsolicited manuscripts. The rest of the time, however, it was clear her only occupation was the study of Mr. Plympton.

“Is that everyone?” the Doctor asked once they had all finished their reports.

“Yes,” Robert nodded. “Apart from Mrs. Baxter,” he shrugged.

“Did I hear my name?” Mrs. Baxter prompted, standing in the doorway with her hands on hips. “I suppose you'll be wanting tea,” she huffed.

“Actually, it was you we wanted,” the Doctor said and a moment of surprise flashed across Mrs. Baxter’s face before she quickly shook it away and raised a brow at the Doctor. “How long have you worked here, Mrs. Baxter?”

“Since Nineteen-thirty-four,” Mrs. Baxter replied. “For my sins.”

“Happy?” the Doctor implored with a raised brow.

“Don’t be daft,” the cook scoffed.

“Why not leave then?” 

“Well, if truth be told, I would like to retire.” She stared out of the window with a faraway expression. “To Dorset maybe. I've a sister there. I could keep a pig,” she shrugged.

“Why don’t you do it?” Ariel wondered. “What’s stopping you? What’s the issue?”

 “Trouble is, they'd never cope here without me,” Mrs. Baxter sighed, clearly resigning herself to a position she didn’t need to be in.

“I reckon they’d manage,” the Doctor said. “Don’t you, Rob?” He asked, raising a brow at Robert.

Robert nodded.

“Charmed, I'm sure,” Mrs. Baxter huffed. “Now, if that's all the silly questions, I'll get back to my kitchen. It's lunch in half an hour, and them tins of meat won't open themselves.”

The Doctor stared into the space newly vacated by Mrs. Baxter, his expression dark.

“Someone here is sapping every last drop of ambition from these people. And I'm going to find out who it is,” the Doctor muttered. 

Ariel smirked at him. “Here I thought I was going to be left to figure this out by myself.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easy,” the Doctor smiled. With that, he sprang towards the door with Ariel following closely behind.

“Where are you going?” Robert asked.

“To the Tardis. Er, my motor car,” the Doctor winced, glancing back at Ariel and raising a brow. Had she told Robert anything about them past the fact that they were travelers?

Ariel shook her head. When she headed to the Tardis to change and grab some clothes for the Doctor she just told Robert she was going to fetch a pair of clothes. She never elaborated.

“Spaceship, you mean,” Robert corrected.

Ariel and the Doctor glanced at each other with wide eyes and slack jaws, clearly stunned by the boy’s impossible knowledge.

“I swear I didn’t say anything,” Ariel insisted, raising her hands in surrender.

“No, she didn’t tell me but I worked it out seeing as only an alien would keep something like this in his pocket,” Robert hummed, pulling out the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver and flashing it at the duo.

“Oi!” Ariel snapped, snatching the sonic out of his hands and returning it to the Doctor. “When did you nab that?! I was with you all last night, you little criminal!”

Robert flashed a Cheshire Cat smile. “I went through his pockets after I showed him to his room.”

“Oh, I oughta thump you,” Ariel huffed, rolling her eyes at the boy. “The least you could have done was tell me instead of blindsiding me in front of him.”

Meanwhile, the Doctor was watching Robert with stars in his eyes. “You're a cheeky monkey, aren't you? I like that. Just what I'd do,” he remarked as he stuffed his sonic in his suit.

The Doctor held out his hand to Ariel and together they left the room while Robert beamed and congratulated himself for working it out so quickly.


	5. The Elderly Tree

The Doctor heard a distant voice. A young woman. “Is he alright?”

“He still looks very pale,” said another voice. “Hold on, I think he’s coming round.”

“Well, he would be much better if you would all give him some breathing room,” a much more familiar voice snapped. “Come on, move off you bloody leeches!”

The Doctor sat up slowly, and reality spun into focus. “I’m fine now,” he muttered, rubbing his head as he narrowed his eyes at his surroundings. The last thing he remembered… He winced. He was beginning to hate the way his mind fought him whenever he tried to dig into his mind. He took a deep breath and tried again. 

He had stopped in the corridor and began clutching his mind. Ariel had been patient but persistent making sure he was okay and yet he hadn’t known how to answer her. It felt like a war was waging in his mind and he couldn’t understand what it was up again. 

He fell into a mantra within his mind as he reminded himself who he was and eventually, Ariel’s voice and presence fell from his mind as he turned and marched to the front door. He managed to get his hand around the doorknob before he promptly collapsed to the tune of Ariel screaming his name.

“I think I won the battle,” the Doctor mumbled. Gradually, he glanced around and recognized the residents of Gallows Gate Road looking down at him, hanging back slightly where Ariel and Robert were closest. The Doctor’s eyes widened as he stared at the residents. “One of you is an alien!” the Doctor cried.

A deathly hush fell over the corridor, echoed with worried chatter.

“Doctor,” Ariel moaned, wincing at his sudden outburst while Robert grit his teeth and didn’t dare speak a word.

“He must still be woozy,” Miss Sillington sighed.

The Major, on the other hand, had a polar opposite reaction. “Barking mad!” He snapped.

The Doctor scrambled to his feet and Ariel followed suit as he looked out the window, narrowing his eyes at the quickly approaching darkness. “It’s getting dark,” he remarked. “How long was I out?” He asked, his eyes moving to Ariel and remaining trained solely on her.

“A couple of hours,” Ariel shrugged. “You just dropped after what you were going through what I assumed was your biggest headache since we got here.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but never mind,” he shook his head. “There’s work to do!” He exclaimed. He pushed through the small crowd using one hand to grab Ariel’s hand and his other hand to grab Robert’s small arm. “Come on, we’re searching this house from attic to basement!”

“No, you are not!” Mrs. Mann proclaimed. “My house does not need searching!”

“Clearly, you’re a bit behind the punch if you believe that, Mrs. Mann,” Ariel hummed.

“It could do with a good search,” the Doctor nodded in agreement as he dropped Robert’s arm to fish his sonic screwdriver out of his suit. He waved it in front of Mrs. Mann’s face with a small as if to say, _ ‘see? I’ve even got the equipment for a search!’ _ With that, he bolted up the stairs with his hand still in Ariel’s and Robert trailing behind them.

“Well I never,” Major Woolly huffed.

Upstairs, the Doctor kicked open the door to the Major’s room. Ariel immediately began scanning the room for anything that seemed strange or off-putting. Meanwhile, the Doctor scanned the room with his sonic and Robert ran into the room, panting, struggling to keep up.

“What are we looking for?” Robert gasped.

“There's an alien intelligence hiding in this house, and it's very powerful. When I tried to leave, it almost consumed me. Took all my mental reserves to beat it back” the Doctor sighed.

“That’s what that was?” Ariel frowned. “It seemed like you were going through some mental battle.”  
“I was,” the Doctor shrugged. “Just not the sort you were imagining.”

“Barely any memory and you’re still the smartest man I’ve ever seen,” Ariel chuckled. 

The Doctor simply beamed at her.

With that, Ariel began clawing through Major Woolly’s belongings not really thinking about what she was doing or the fact that this was an actual person whose privacy she was completely invading. All she could think of was the fact that as stubborn as he might be, she needed to bring the Doctor back to himself completely. He deserved the ability to walk through life knowing who he was at the very least. She didn’t know him well enough to say whether or not he particularly enjoyed poncing about all of time and space saving the day but she hated seeing how lost he looked when she walked into his room that morning. He seemed like a scared little child just looking for a mother or somebody to guide him and show him what to do, especially when he had to ask Ariel how he knew her or whether or not he knew Robert. It was a look she’d only ever seen on her nan and she had prayed to the gods that she would never have to see that look again.

The Doctor deserved his identity back and to be able to say with absolute confidence who he was instead of needing to rely on Ariel to fill in the gaps. If that meant invading the privacy of a man she barely knew, so be it.

“If I know my alien intelligences, which I do,” the Doctor continued, “there's a more than fair chance it's hiding inside another life form.”

There was a pregnant pause as Ariel stopped searching and glanced back at Robert with wide eyes.

“You mean... one of us? Like the Major? Or Mother?” He paused. “Or me?”

Ariel furrowed her brows and glanced back at the Doctor. She had no idea where the alien intelligence could be, or who it could be. For all, she knew it could be her.

“'I'm sorry, Rob, but anything's possible,” the Doctor muttered, fishing his glasses out of his suit and placing the small brown spectacles on his nose.

“Doctor?” Ariel prompted. “Is there any chance it could be me?”

“No,” the Doctor dismissed with a shake of his head. “Though we need to address how you’re not feeling the effects of this thing I doubt it’s you. Whatever it is, it’s rooted here otherwise these people would only just feel as though they’ve been stuck here.”

Ariel nodded absentmindedly, fighting back any sign of how elated she felt at the fact that it couldn’t be her.

“Now, whatever happens next, Ariel and I are here to help,” the Doctor assured Robert. “Now, help us search. We're looking for anything that seems out of place.”

“Or out of time,” Rober proposed.

Ariel and the Doctor looked to each other with knowing smirks. The kid caught on fast.

“You’re catching on,” the Doctor remarked with a small smile. 

He placed his sonic in his pocket once he finished the scans and marched past where Ariel was flinging up Major Woolly’s mattress to the wardrobe. He flung open the doors and sighed softly. “I knew you’d understand.”

Over the next few hours, the three of them tore Major Woolly’s room to bits and when Mrs. Mann marched in to complain, the Doctor pulled out a strange piece of paper and flashed it at her.

He claimed it was a warrant from the Ministry of War but when Ariel looked at it, she just saw a bunch of squiggly lines and funny shapes.

“What’s that?” Ariel asked once Mrs. Mann left.

“Mm? Oh, psychic paper,” he said, pulling out the paper once again so she could see. “It tells people whatever I want them to see. It’s how I get around. One flash of this and suddenly you have proof that you’re allowed to be there.”

“But all I saw were a bunch of squiggly lines and funny shapes,” Ariel frowned as she passed the paper back to him.

The Doctor smiled softly at that. “Your imagination is too much. It happens. You knew that wasn’t what I said it was so the paper shorted out trying to be all the things you thought it could be. When it can’t work out one thing you see squiggly lines. On the other hand, if you had no imagination it would short out and appear blank. You don’t think of it as anything so it’s nothing.”

“Oh, well, nice to know I’ve got a big imagination, I suppose,” Ariel hummed and the Doctor chuckled.

After they finished searching Major Woolly’s bedroom they moved through all the others but found nothing too out of the ordinary. Anything slightly odd they may have spotted they had already told each other after they had interrogated the residents. There was nothing new for them to discover.

After the bedrooms, they checked the dining room and the drawing room. Still, they seemed to find no clues. Then they went downstairs to the basement, the domain of Mrs. Baxter, which she ruled like a dictator.

“What are you doing in here?!” Mrs. Baxter boomed as soon as the trio entered the kitchen. “I'm trying to make a jam roly-poly.”

“We won't get in the way of your roly-poly,” the Doctor assured her.

Robert narrowed his eyes at Mrs. Baxter like he knew she was the one they were looking for. “We’re searching for aliens,” he muttered, his tone low like he knew that was her.

“Germans, you mean?” Mrs. Baxter frowned.

“No,” Robert huffed. “The ones from outer space.”

Rather than a large sign appearing out of thin air with flashing lights pointing to Mrs. Baxter screaming that she was the alien, the woman just rolled her eyes and got back to work. 

“I think I’d like to be a chef when I grow up,” Robert muttered as the trio set about searching the kitchen. “Head chef at The Ritz, in fact,” he smiled.

“You ought to write all this stuff down,” Ariel remarked as she went through the cupboards. “Then maybe you can do everything you think of.”

Robert’s eyes brightened like that was the most brilliant idea he had ever heard.

However, while they talked the Doctor was tuning both of them out. He was on his hands and knees looking at something at the bottom of the wall or on the floor. 

“Look!” He shouted.

Robert and Ariel headed over to kneel down on either side of him and see what he was looking at.

Just above the skirting board, the plaster was cracked and crumbling. The Doctor crawled further along the length of the wall. “It's here too,” he said. “And here!”

“What's so strange?” Robert asked. “The back wall of the house is full of cracks like that.”

“Yeah, Doctor, it could just be an old house,” Ariel shrugged. “That hardly screams aliens.”

The Doctor stood up. “I've been blind,” he sighed. “Let's go! It's time to end this!”

 

* * *

The Doctor called all the inhabitants of the house to a meeting and it was safe to say more than one of them was put out as Robert and Ariel stood on either side of the Doctor addressing the dining room.

Major Woolly tapped his watch. “This is insufferable, Doctor,” he huffed. “First you accuse one of us of being a spy, then you ransack our rooms, and now you're encroaching on dinner!”

“Never mind all that,” the Doctor scoffed. “You're all in deadly danger. A force in this house is sucking away your potential like a sponge absorbs water, and not one of you is capable of the teensiest hint of motivation or-.”

“How dare you!” Major Woolly interrupted, his face turning red with fury. “I could walk out that front door this very minute and achieve anything I put my mind to. We all could.”

“Then do it,” Ariel snapped, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at the Major. “Right now. Walk out and prove that we’re wrong.”

“It’s after six,” Miss Sillington mumbled. “Everything will be shut.”

“Exactly,” Ariel huffed. “Now, either walk out of this house right now or quit your whinging and listen to the Doctor!” She barked.

The Doctor glanced at her with a strange look across his face but based on the smile she hoped it was not a good look and his reaction to her acting completely mad in front of people she barely knew. 

The Doctor cleared his throat and quickly regained his composure before Ariel could even think to ask why he was staring at her in that way. He turned his attention back to the people in the dining room. “Major, you should be back in the Army. I know that's where your heart is. Why else keep your uniform so neatly pressed? Miss Sillington, you're a fantastic painter, so why not paint? And you, Clive, could write that novel. You wouldn't be alone if Miss Gibbs finally found the willpower to express her true feelings. And even Mrs. Baxter could have her pig in the country.”

Six shocked faces gaped back at him, but the Doctor continued, lowering his voice slightly.

“And as for you, Mrs. Mann, you can't even have that tree in the back garden cut down. A tree that steals your light and makes you miserable every time you look at it.” He stared at them sternly. “You're all brilliant, wonderful people, but not one of you has the strength to follow your dreams. And there's a reason for that.”

“More talk of dark forces?” Mrs. Mann moaned.

“Oi, what did I say about the whinging?” Ariel snapped and Mrs. Mann clenched her jaw but remained quiet.

“But it’s not just talk,” the Doctor insisted, not bothering to hide his smile at Ariel’s fierce defense. “It’s here amongst you.”

The room erupted into confused chatter.

“If I'm correct,” the Doctor continued, “this force is stealing your ambition and using it. I've felt it myself.”

“You haven't said anything about me, Doctor,” Robert ventured. “What about me?”

“Yea, and me,” Ariel frowned. “I haven’t felt the effects of this thing,” she shrugged.

“You’re different to everyone else here,” the Doctor replied. “Both of you.”

Miss Sillington gasped. “You don’t mean that… are they aliens?” She frowned, glancing between Ariel and Robert.

Ariel rolled her eyes and Robert winced as though she had dealt a blow against him.

“Of course not,” the Doctor scoffed. “What’s important about the pair of them is that they’ve both been completely unaffected. And that’s why they’ve both helped me so much,” he said, smiling at the duo. First, he turned and addressed Robert. “It hasn't touched you because you're young. You haven't made up your mind about what you want to be in life. There's no specific ambition to hone in on.”

“Yes, there is,” Robert protested with a frown. “I want to be an escapologist.”

“Bloody hell, where’d you get that one?” Ariel laughed and Robert grinned sheepishly.

“You wanted to be a chef half an hour ago,” the Doctor reminded him with a smile. “But that's great. There's no reason you should make up your mind. You've got years ahead - and a trillion possibilities to choose from.” The Doctor ruffled Robert’s hair. “Though I must say I'm glad you've dropped the chef idea. Hard work and terrible money,” he hummed.

“What about me?” Ariel frowned. “I’m not a child like Robert and I was even majoring in something before we went off. Why hasn’t it affected me?”

“Because of that one little word: ‘was’,” the Doctor beamed at her. “You were going to major in photography but since you started traveling with me you have a million more choices and you know it. Plus, seeing as we’re so early on you still haven’t decided whether or not you want to continue traveling with me. Your entire life is up in the air right now and that’s why it hasn’t touched you either. You’re at a crossroads in your life and are far from resigning to one way of living, therefore, it can’t hone in on anything but indecision.”

Ariel turned away from the Doctor with wide eyes. She hated how right he was. She could leave the Doctor and go back to school and what she was doing or choose a completely different career path to try and chase the thrills she’s had with the Doctor that she was far from finding in photography despite how good she might be at it. She could also stay with the Doctor and see where that may take her and why the future message had been about her of all people. She had a million different options and she hadn’t stopped for a moment to consider all of them let alone realize how much of a crossroads she really was frozen at. Part of her marveled at the fact that an alien could sense all of that before she could ever really begin to grasp it.

“Then if it’s someone here, who is it?” Mrs. Baxter asked with a frown.

The residents of No.1 Gallows Gate Road eyed one another suspiciously.

“It’s not any of you,” the Doctor sighed. Without further explanation, he marched over to the doors leading into the garden. He pushed them open and stepped outside. An icy gust of wind blew through the room.

“Where’s he going now?” Mrs. Mann snapped. 

“Deuced if I know,” Major Woolly hummed.

“Well, how about if you stop asking and follow him?” Ariel implored, waving the group outside with a raised brow. The residents exchanged confused frowns and Ariel groaned loudly before stomping out after the Doctor with Robert scurrying up beside her. 

In the garden, the Doctor stared up at the enormous oak. It was dark, but a full moon illuminated everything. There was silence, bar a steady tap-tap-tap on the bedroom windows as the highest branches of the tree swayed in the chilly wind.

Robert appeared at the Doctor's elbow. “Those cracks in the basement wall,” he breathed. “They're caused by the tree.”

“The tree was the issue all along,” Ariel moaned, slapping a hand to her forehead. “Of course!” It was so much more obvious now that she knew.

“Exactly!” the Doctor exclaimed with a small smile. “Its roots are digging into the foundations, spreading further every day, and claiming the house.”

“You’re saying out villain is a tree?” the Major scoffed. 

Ariel glanced back and rolled her eyes when she saw all the residents were huddled together in the doorway leading out to the garden. 

“It's a nuisance, keeping me awake at night,” Miss Sillington mumbled, “but I wouldn't call it villainous.”

“It was your last painting,” Ariel reminded her with a raised brow. “You produced brilliant paintings for so long then all of a sudden you make a painting of this tree in a style totally different to your own and give up painting forever. Isn’t that at least a little bit suspicious?”

The Doctor took a step deeper into the garden, then winced and put a hand to his head. “Can't you feel it? An intelligent parasite. It needs the energy of others to live. And this is a particularly vicious example. I've seen something like it before. On Esto, in the Lagoon Nebula.” He pointed into the sky. “Somewhere over there.”

Robert and Ariel gazed up towards the stars before glancing at each other with smiles as the Doctor continued.

“These parasites inhabit the longest-lived life form in any world they visit. They don't have a physical shape of their own, so they need an anchor. They're really just squiggly waves of psychic force.” The Doctor took another step forward and clutched his head again, clearly in pain. Ariel felt a pang of sympathy with every move she watched the Doctor take, but the more he seemed like his former self the more she worried about making unwelcome moves, even if they were of platonic kindness, towards him. “Fetch an ax, Robert.”

“Don’t you dare!” Mrs. Mann screamed just as Robert moved to go and do as the Doctor instructed.

“Ignore her, Rob.” 

“C’mon, Rob,” Ariel said. “We’ll fetch an ax together.”

Robert glanced worriedly between the Doctor and his mother but once the Doctor nodded for him to go, he grabbed Ariel’s hand and guided her to where he knew an ax laid.

Meanwhile, the Doctor stared at the landlady. “If it's so harmless, then what are you afraid of? You've already said how much you want it cut down.”

Mrs. Mann stomped over to the vast oak tree and stood in front of it, arms outstretched. “You are not touching poor old Lofty!”

“This tree is home to an alien parasite,” the Doctor protested. “And I reckon it has been for hundreds of years. Miss Sillington told Ariel there have always been stories about this house. I should have realized then it hadn't possessed a human. That tree has been here far longer than any of you, any of these buildings even. And think of the name of the street.”

“Gallows Gate Road,” Clive murmured. “In the Eighteenth Century, criminals convicted by the Kent magistrates were executed somewhere near here.”

“Near here?” the Doctor repeated with a raised brow. “Where do you think the hangman slung his rope? This place has always been home to misery and loss. The force inhabiting that tree has been feeding off human potential for centuries.”

Ariel and Robert emerged from the garden shed, not toting an ax but rather a two-man crosscut saw. 

The Doctor furrowed his brows at the sight of the saw but Ariel just glared at him. 

“I know you’re in pain and everything, but you are not leaving me out of this,” Ariel huffed. “My dad was a lumberjack and whenever I went with him to work I used to watch him cut down countless trees with his mates.”

The Doctor smirked and shook his head. “Fortunately for you, I don’t think the tree will let me get any closer,” he sighed. “Rob, you’re a big boy now. Do you think you can handle this with Ariel?”

“I suppose so,” Robert muttered, clenching his hands to stop them shaking.

Ariel smiled warmly at him. “It’ll be alright, Robert,” she assured him. “All you have to do is push the saw towards me when I push it to you.”

Robert took a deep breath and nodded. “Alright, I think I can do this.”

“Don’t!” Mrs. Mann bellowed.

“It's n-not a good idea,” Miss Sillington stammered.

“I wouldn't if I were you, my boy,” the Major hummed lowly.

The residents edged towards Ariel and Robert, but the Doctor strode between them. “It's for your own good!” he cried. Then he turned to Robert and Ariel. “Chop it down. You're the only ones who can.”

Ariel watched Robert carefully. “Together,” she instructed and he nodded.

Ariel pushed the saw into the tree as she had seen her father do a million times growing up and began digging into the tree with the saw.

“Nooo!” the others all wailed while the Doctor watched them with a large grin.

Ariel and Robert continued to saw into the tree no matter what they heard from the residents, cutting deep into the trunk.

The Doctor and the rest staggered, struggling to remain on their feet. Then they stared up in horror.

“What’s that?!” Mrs. Baxter cried.

From the tree came a vast, luminous green imprint of itself - a ghostly silhouette that hovered above the small crowd and let out a deafening shriek.

“It’s the entity leaving!” the Doctor hollered over the din. “Keep going!”

Ariel and Robert continued to furiously saw into the trunk’s open wound. 

The terrifying shape was twisting into a swirling vortex, which sent a vicious wind whipping about the house. It was so strong the residents could hardly keep their footing.

Miss Sillington gripped onto the Major. “I feel strange,” she gasped.

“Here, let me have a go,” Mr. Plympton requested as he waded forward and grabbed Robert’s side of the ax.

He was followed by the Major, who took over from Ariel enthusiastically sawing at the tree, the strange green energy whipping about him all the while.

The saw continued relentless and the tree creaked and splintered.

It was then that the whirlwind began to lose its strength, and with a final piercing howl, it was sucked in upon itself, until just a single ball of light hovered over the Doctor, and then disappeared.

The Doctor collapsed.

“Doctor!” Ariel screamed.

She raced over to his side, skidding on the ground. 

Major Woolly passed his side of the ax over to Mrs. Mann. “All yours, dear lady. Finish him off!”

Laughing, the landlady pushed the saw one final time, and with a deafening crack, the tree fell, crashing down across the garden and two more besides.

“Doctor,” Ariel mumbled as the Doctor began trembling on the ground. She placed a hand to his forehead and winced. He was burning up. She knew it wasn’t some simple fever or illness that suddenly grasped him. She had seen that ball of light over him and though she couldn’t quite understand what might be going on inside of him she was willing to bet the entity was messing with him. “Come on, Doctor, fight it,” she insisted. “I know you can do it. You’re the most brilliant irritating man I’ve ever met and if anybody could shove that entity out, I reckon you’d be able to do it,” she said, smiling sadly down at him despite her fear. She had no idea what she would do if the Doctor was lost. She had known him for such a brief time and yet he seemed like a mountain to her, incapable of being brought down.

Eventually, the residents began chattering amongst themselves, in a way they hadn't done the whole time the Doctor had been with them. It was as if a light had been turned on and they saw one another - and themselves - for the first time.

“Doctor, listen to my voice,” Ariel murmured. “You are the Doctor. You’re a Time Lord. You’re rude but I know there’s kindness within you otherwise you would have let me die the moment you landed across the street from me when those angels had me surrounded. I don’t know what this thing is doing to you or if it’s doing anything at all but you have to remember who you are. Please. Remember.”

The Doctor groaned and rubbed his head. All of a sudden, the light she had seen reappeared over the Doctor making Ariel jump backward. It hovered momentarily over them before it streaked across the sky and disappeared from sight.

Meanwhile, the Doctor moaned roughly and climbed to his feet. With wide eyes, Ariel followed and allowed him to hold onto her as he regained his balance and rubbed his fingers over his temples.

“Are we good?” Ariel asked softly, raising a brow at the Doctor.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her and nodded. “It’s gone off to find another old thing so inhabit,” he breathed, smiling weakly at her.

Ariel beamed at him and, unable to help herself, jumped into his arms to hug him tightly. “That was-that was absolutely brilliant!” She exclaimed. Suddenly, her face fell as she realized she was suddenly closer to the Doctor than she had ever been. He seemed to sense it as well because his hands were just skimming her waist, far from wrapped around her in a proper hug. 

Ariel jumped down and looked up at him with wide eyes. She cleared her throat and shoved her shirt down a bit. “I mean, we saved everyone, didn’t we?” She prompted with a small smirk.

The Doctor chuckled lightly and nodded. “Yeah, I suppose we did,” he hummed.

“The thing in the tree - is it dead?” Miss Sillington asked and Ariel rolled her eyes. 

They showed an awful lot of concern when the Doctor had dropped to be asking about that bloody alien. 

“I don't think it can be killed. It's just fled to another host. As I said, it inhabits the oldest life form around. And right here, right now... that's me,” the Doctor shrugged.

Miss Sillington looked at the Doctor, clearly confused.

“I’m nine hundred and four, you know,” the Doctor grinned and Ariel snorted at his blunt way of telling them he was an alien.

 

* * *

Later that night, the guests of No.1 Gallows Gate Road were once again gathered around the dining table. A crackling fire blazed in the hearth.

“Let us raise a glass to the Doctor,” Mrs. Mann proclaimed, raising her cup in the air.

Everyone lifted their glasses. “To the Doctor,” they said with one voice.

“I'm not sure if I can accept everything you told us, Doctor,” Major Woolly sighed. “But I must say I haven't felt this much get-up-and-go in years,” he beamed.

“I'll second that,” Miss Sillington announced, raising her glass in the air once more. She wore her large hat, but rather than the feathers it was decorated with leaves from the fallen oak tree.

“I can't believe all this stuff about aliens either,” Mrs. Mann hummed, “and goodness knows how I'll explain that mess outside to the neighbors, but I finally feel able to make some changes around here.”

“I suspect that all of you will start doing more with your life than just hanging around here every day,” Ariel smiled at the group.

“I'm signing up on Monday,” the Major announced with a grin. “Even a duffer like me might be of some use. If only to the Home Guard.”

“Good for you,” the Doctor nodded.

“I'm already making notes for my novel,” Clive told them, tapping a notebook in his jacket pocket.

“And I'm going to get back to my painting,” Miss Sillington sighed, a grin painted across her face as she leaned back in her seat. “I fancy doing a portrait. Maybe someone famous even. I could do some of you two,” she suggested, nodding to the Doctor and Ariel.

The pair smiled warmly but shared a knowing look. Now that the Doctor had his memory back and they had solved it all, they had to be going. They weren’t going to just spend the rest of their lives in the forties. If they did Ariel would bring up more than one complaint with the Doctor considering she had signed on for traveling, not the forties for the rest of her life.

Miss Sillington frowned at the pair of them, seeming to sense their thoughts. “You’re staying on, aren’t you?” She implored, furrowing her brow as she watched them.

Luckily, before they had to answer that difficult question, Mrs. Baxter burst in carrying a huge bowl of stew. “And don't ask what I had to do to get this little lot,” she sighed, placing the dish proudly on the table.

“It looks lovely, Bertha,” Mrs. Mann beamed.

“Now, it's not that I don't like it here,” the cook huffed, placing her hands on her hips and glaring around the table. “But come January I've fixed to move down to my sister's in Bridport.”

“You're leaving us?” Miss Gibbs gasped.

“Now don't try to talk me out of it because when I make up my mind…” She snapped, trailing off as if waiting for someone to protest. But no one did. “I'll fetch the bread and butter then,” Mrs. Baxter grumbled, sighing and shuffling out.

And whilst most of the guests were busy helping themselves to portions of stew, the Doctor noticed Clive Plympton give Miss Gibbs a coy smile. Her face lit up with happiness. The Doctor tapped Ariel’s arm as she continued to eat without noticing. 

She raised a brow and he nodded to the new pairing. “Seems those two might finally get together,” he remarked.

“Oh, matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match,” Ariel giggled. “I know you didn’t do anything but if it never got solved those two would have been in relationship limbo forever,” she groaned.

The Doctor chuckled softly and nodded in agreement before glancing around the table. Robert was shoveling forkfuls of food into his mouth.

“I definitely know what I want to be when I’m older,” Robert proclaimed. 

The Doctor smiled proudly. “It's not all fun being a time traveler,” he warned. “But I'm very flattered, Robby-boy.”

“Oh, ego much?!” Ariel exclaimed with a laugh.

Robert frowned. “I don't want to be like you, silly!” He flicked a glance towards the garden. “I want to be a lumberjack.”

The Doctor was nothing short of flabbergasted and Ariel continued to laugh at him as he stood up and placed his napkin on the table. 

The Doctor glanced down at her and gave her a look that despite her limited knowledge of him, she could read from a million miles away.

“Oh, already?” Ariel moaned. “Are we even going to say goodbye?”

“I find it’s better not to,” the Doctor sighed. “Easier that way.”

Ariel wanted to argue but found she couldn’t find the words to do so. What was she going to say? Goodbyes were hard and would be especially awkward with everyone there save for Robert possibly. She sighed softly and nodded, standing up and placing her napkin on the table.

As the residents chattered amongst themselves and Robert was too immersed in stuffing his face to notice them, they quietly slipped out of No.1 Gallows Gate Road. 

Across the street the Tardis stood waiting for them and together they hurried inside, leaving with nothing but a loud wheezing and groaning to flood the street.


	6. Just A Passenger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are snippets from the 'Clara and the Tardis' short as well as Gridlock where the Doctor explains his past to Martha. If you recognize them, that's why.

After they left the forties, the Doctor decided it would be fun to go on the trail of a galactic criminal no matter how much Ariel adamantly protested the idea. It was a creature from a species called the Extron. The Extron had been imprisoned by the Judoon, a species the Doctor refused to elaborate on because he claimed she would not believe him, and it escaped. They tracked it back to Earth but couldn’t stop it from kidnapping a nine-year-old girl named Violet. They tracked the pair of them to a planet called Onla-toch and the Doctor brought a pair of biometric handcuffs Ariel didn’t even bother to try and understand. He gave the handcuffs to Violet so she could put them on the Extron and transport it back to its home planet while the Doctor and Ariel took Violet home.

After they dropped Violet off, the Tardis landed underground on an alien planet with superheated water, which the Doctor took smug joy in warning Ariel of with his sonic before she stepped into it. However, his elation didn’t last long as right after he turned his sonic screwdriver on a swarm of bat-like creatures flew straight down at them. Ariel yelled at the Doctor the entire time they ran until they both caught sight of a hooded figure straight ahead of them. 

The figure beckoned them into a cave and despite Ariel warning the Doctor this was how every horror movie worth anything started, they followed the hooded figure. The hooded figure revealed himself to be an individual named Kaze. He told them that the bat-like creatures were Shrikes that fed off electronic energy and took them to the village where they had been reduced to wind power to keep the Shrikes away. Then, Kaze took them to the Halls of Sacrifice and introduced them to the village leader, Genji. Genji told the Doctor it is called the halls of sacrifice as every year a pair is chosen to train to defend against the Shrikes. When there is no electronic energy the Shrikes begin to feed off people - a fact which did not at all please Ariel even though it fascinated the Doctor.

Meanwhile, the Shrikes surrounded the Tardis. Kaze and Ariel used the sonic screwdriver to lure them away while the Doctor used the Tardis to boost the ship's power. He returned to pick up Kaze and Ariel. The Doctor then collected all the villagers, along with Genji, and brought them into the Tardis. He ejected some Tardis rooms full of electronic rubbish to feed the Shrikes for a long time while taking all the villagers to a new home.

After they dropped off all the villagers the Doctor decided it was time to get some rest and hover over some bit of space so they could catch up on rest.

Ariel didn’t have the heart to tell him that not only was she far from tired, but she doubted she would be able to sleep even if she tried. 

She had been diagnosed with chronic insomnia years ago, around the time her father died. She had medication for it even if she rarely took it because it always left her drowsy when her alarm went off the next morning.

There were some nights she could sleep well, but most nights she was incapable of sleep no matter how many times she rolled around in bed and pleaded with her brain to shut off and grant eight hours of sleep.

Nevertheless, this was one of those periods where she knew she wasn’t going to be able to sleep no matter how bad she wanted to. 

She headed into the room she had claimed within the Tardis briefly to change into sweatpants, a shirt, and a hoodie before heading out to try and find the kitchen through the corridors. 

She ducked into a few rooms before she found a tiny kitchen with a fridge, microwave, cupboards full of food, and an oven. “Oh, lovely,” she smiled at the domestic setting. She brewed herself a mug of hot chocolate and headed out to the console room to hang out on the jumpseat until she felt hungry enough to make herself some breakfast.

“Alright,” Ariel sighed as she sat down on the jumpseat and stirred her hot chocolate just a bit with her spoon. “It seems it’s just you and me for a bit,” she said to the Tardis. “I’d feel a bit mad talking to a machine if I didn’t see the Doctor doing it when he thought I wasn’t looking,” she chuckled. “I assume you’re not just like a car or something and you can think, but if it’s all the same to you please don’t speak even if you’re capable of it,” she hummed. “I don’t think my head could do with that much right about now.”

The Tardis beeped oddly, different to how she usually did so Ariel assumed that was the best response the machine could give.

“I feel like I should be freaking out about this whole world,” Ariel remarked. “I mean I ran away with an alien in a time and space machine. I’ve faced other aliens in other times and on other worlds and yet part of me just feels like it could be crazier. I feel like aliens being out there isn’t too hard to grasp and time and space travel is already an extremely popular concept in movies and shows so why shouldn’t it exist with some aliens? I want to freak out because I think that’d be normal, but I can’t. It’s not too scary because yes, the threat of potentially dying is there but if I go out while traveling with him I’d be saving people and that so much more than the death I would have gotten back home,” she sighed. “Then again I might have had the chance to live a long and happy life with some man or woman that strikes my fancy so there is that.”

The Tardis beeped again, but with a high pitched beep at the end and despite it sound like machinery nonsense Ariel had this strange feeling she understood what the Tardis said.

“Are you in my head?” Ariel wondered. “Because I’ve been thinking about that and I’ve understood everyone no matter where we’ve gone so I figure there’s got to be a reason behind that. I had planned on asking the Doctor but it felt completely dumb to assume that everyone everywhere was just speaking English so I let it go.”

The Tardis made a noise that Ariel felt like was a confirmation of that fact.

“Oh, so you can translate everything for me?” Ariel gasped and once again the Tardis confirmed it. “That’s so bloody cool. I’ve always wanted to learn other languages. My Mum tried to teach me French growing up because she was furious Dad make us move to England when I was so young but I was never fully fluent. I understand enough to hold conversations but I can’t read or write it for the life of me,” she moaned. “Still, it’s cool to now be able to understand every language in the universe,” she smirked. 

Ariel stood up and stirred her hot chocolate as she walked around the console room. “So, did the others have this reaction to you or am I the first? Well, not the first here, that’s not what I mean. I know he traveled with two other women, but-.”

Before she could finish, the monitor on the console switched on and Ariel froze as it began to load.

“Should we do this? I mean what sort of people are we if we talk about the Doctor’s exes like this?” Ariel sighed.

The Tardis beeped indignantly at her.

“Oh, I suppose you’re right,” Ariel shrugged. “It’s only fair if I know,” she nodded as she leaned towards the monitor. “Just for the record, he never knows what you showed me here tonight.”

The Tardis blipped in agreement before images began flicking across the screen. Some of them were old, black and white, while others had women in clear vintage clothing from the seventies. There were two that appeared more modern and recent and Ariel could only assume those were the last two women that came before her.

“Blimey,” Ariel muttered as she watched all the images. “That’s quite a selection,” she remarked. “Does he ever travel with any blokes?!” She exclaimed.

The monitor changed back to a loading screen and images of a little over ten men filled the screen.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Ariel moaned. “He really is an intergalactic playboy,” she huffed and the Tardis made a noise that sounded like laughter. 

“I don’t know why I’m surprised, he’s an alien over nine-hundred years old plenty of girls would have that kink. Especially if he saved their lives all the bloody time.”

The Tardis hummed at her and she could practically feel the girl raising a brow at her and giving her that pointed look like they both knew what Ariel was talking about.

“Oh, don’t give me that!” Ariel snapped. “Is he attractive? Sure! Is he intelligent? Of course! But he’s also a bloody idiot who I’m holding a grudge against for being so rude to me and who I need to learn more about before I even think of fancying him.”

The Tardis spluttered and Ariel rolled her eyes. 

“I’m not in love with him. I can recognize an attractive face without being head over heels for it,” Ariel insisted. “Besides, this is the Doctor we’re talking about. He’s in a codependent relationship with a screwdriver. I mean, if he had to choose between an enormously complicated machine he could fix with a toolkit and a girl, who would he go with?”

The Tardis buzzed and beeped out a response and Ariel winced. “Yeah, you’re right,” she muttered. “Both of them. Using the same toolkit.” She groaned and plopped back onto the jumpseat. “Y’know when I was a kid watching  _ E.T  _ I never quite saw my alien abduction going like this,” she hummed. “Still, I can’t complain. I’ve got three meals a day, a bedroom I’m happy in- thank you for that by the way.”

The Tardis beeped out a happy response.

“The only thing is the big question mark that is the Doctor. Well, and this stupid message from the future but I could forget about that if I managed to become friends with him somehow,” Ariel sighed. “I mean, I barely understand the bloke.”

Ariel wasn’t sure if his ears were ringing but mere moments the Doctor appeared at the edge of the console room and cleared his throat, drawing Ariel’s attention to him. 

His only wore a shirt with the top few buttons undone and trousers. His hair was the worst she had ever seen it and he was staring at her with furrowed brows. “What are you doing out here?”

“It wasn’t a sleeping night for me,” Ariel shrugged. “I have chronic insomnia so some nights I sleep and some nights I do not.”

The Doctor groaned and ran his hands over his face. “Oh, you warned me about this,” he moaned. “But don’t you have some medication for this or something?”

“Yeah, at home. Besides, I don’t like taking that because it leaves me drowsy no matter when I wake up. Now, what was that about me warning you about this?” Ariel frowned.

The Doctor winced and glanced at her quickly before shaking his head. “Nothing, I’m still asleep.”

“Speaking of which, why aren’t you in bed?” Ariel wondered. “It can’t have been eight hours already.”

“Time Lords need less sleep than humans,” the Doctor answered. “What were you planning to do waiting out here, though? Just sit here for eight hours until I came in and took you somewhere?”

“No,” Ariel scoffed. “I’m not that much of a brat. I was going to stay here until I was hungry enough to make myself breakfast.”

“Couldn’t you just do that in your room?” the Doctor huffed.

“Well, isn’t someone touchy when they wake up,” Ariel huffed. “For your information Sergeant Cranky I’m not all that capable of eating or drinking anything in a bed and I wasn’t going to sit on the floor of my room like some heathen.”

The Doctor groaned loudly and took a deep breath. “Right then, what do you want to do because I normally have my own plans when I wake up and wait for everyone else to.”

“By all means, don’t let me get in your way,” Ariel sighed, raising her hands in surrender. “Is this all you do though? You’re just the alien with the time and spaceship and everyone else is like a passenger in a cab?”

The Doctor scoffed. “I believe the Tardis is a bit more advanced than a London cab.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. I’m just saying it feels a bit like I’m the passenger, you’re the driver and there’s nothing more we know about each other.”

“I know everything about you,” the Doctor frowned. “Did you just forget I looked into you after that message?”

“And that’s never going to stop being creepy!” Ariel smiled. “But still, I know nothing about you,” she shrugged. “What, am I supposed to just follow along and never ask any questions because if that’s the case I can just head home.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes and leaned back on the console as he faced her. “What do you want to know?” He snapped. “What could I even tell you that you might hope to understand?”

“Okay, being rude again,” Ariel huffed. “But you looked me up for a reason. You had to know who I was before you traveled with me and I just think I should be owed the same courtesy.”

“You know who I am,” the Doctor moaned, spinning back around to face the Tardis. “This is who I am. Right here, right now.”

“No, it’s not,” Ariel frowned and the Doctor whirled back to her with wide eyes. “This is a face you’re putting up because for whatever reason you don’t want me to know anything about you or get close to you. You’re still treating me like I’m here just to perform a service I don’t even know about,” she muttered. The Doctor hung his head and Ariel clenched her jaw. That alone told her she was right. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this but I’m not just some spare part. I’ll keep repeating it until you get it through your head because I deserve to be treated like a person who ran off with a strange man she would like to know something substantial about.”

Still looking down, the Doctor sighed deeply and closed his eyes. There was a pregnant pause as Ariel waited with bated breath to see how he would react. Of all the scenarios that dashed through her mind, him looking at her with sad brown eyes that screamed all his years so loud she felt like she was being smacked with it.

“I’m from Gallifrey,” the Doctor told her. Slowly, he moved to sit down by her side on the jumpseat and Ariel pulled her legs up, crossing them and shifting so she could face him completely. “The sky's a burnt orange, with the Citadel enclosed in a mighty glass dome, shining under the twin suns. Beyond that, the mountains go on forever. Slopes of deep red grass capped with snow. The second sun would rise in the south, and the mountains would shine. The leaves on the trees were silver, and when they caught the light every morning, it looked like a forest on fire. When autumn came, the breeze would blow through the branches like a song.”

Ariel watched him with wonder in her eyes. “That sounds so beautiful,” she breathed. “Why did you leave?”

“Oh,” the Doctor scoffed. “I could give you a billion reasons. I’m sure people on Earth could leave some of the most beautiful places there and give you a billion reasons as well. Regardless, none of it mattered once I stole this Tardis and ran away,” he smirked. “Gallifrey, the orange sky, the Citadel. It was all behind me.”

Ariel chuckled lightly. “You stole this Tardis?”

“Oh, yeah,” the Doctor beamed.

“Was it a police box when you stole it? Do Tardises on Gallifrey have certain designs like that?”

The Doctor snorted and shook his head. “No, er, somewhere in the sixties it got stuck like that.” He scratched the back of his neck and looked anywhere but her green eyes. “I’m working on it,” he mumbled.

“Didn’t you say you were nine-hundred and four?” Ariel frowned.

“Yeah?”

“So, when exactly is that?” Ariel implored with a raised brow and the Doctor laughed as his cheeks slowly pinkened.

“I’m working on it,” he mumbled. “But if it wasn’t stuck the chameleon circuit is meant to blend it flawlessly with the surroundings.”

“It’s a good thing nobody notices a police box in England,” Ariel shrugged. “But are there others? Other people like you, I mean? Could there be Tardises that have an actual functioning chameleon circuit all over the place.”

The Doctor took a slow, shuddering breath and Ariel winced when she noticed how tense his body had become at her simple question. Whatever the answer was, it wasn’t good.

“Never mind,” Ariel shook her head. “You don’t have to tell me if that was stepping too far. I get somethings are better kept secret.”

Ariel started to stand, but the Doctor grabbed her hand and stopped her before he could. “No,” the Doctor sighed. “I lied about this last time and it doesn’t make it any easier. Not saying it or not telling the truth,” he shrugged. The Doctor looked up at her and Ariel was taken aback by how immensely vulnerable he suddenly looked. He was breaking down a wall between them and it was palpable. 

The Doctor took a deep breath. “There was a war. A Time War. The last Great Time War. My people fought a race called the Daleks, for the sake of all creation. And they lost. They lost. Everyone lost. They're all gone now. My family, my friends,” he mumbled.

With wide eyes, Ariel placed her hand gently on top of the Doctor’s steadily aware of the remaining walls between them keeping her from hugging him. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed. 

The Doctor nodded solemnly and took another deep breath as he pulled his hand out from under hers. “Perhaps, I’ve been too harsh with you,” he confessed. “If you want to go home, I wouldn’t blame you.”

Ariel sighed softly and glanced across the Tardis as she thought. “I will have to go home sometime just so my mother doesn’t call every policeman in Europe, but I don’t think that’ll be anytime soon,” she shrugged. “We’re in a time machine after all. I can procrastinate going back to my Mum for as long as I please.”

The Doctor chuckled softly and nodded. “Your wish is my command,” he hummed.

Ariel eyed him carefully for a moment before she smiled softly. “Where do you want to go next? I feel like these last few trips have either been my choice or out of our control.”

The Doctor was about to answer when the phone rang and both their faces fell for completely different reasons. 

“There goes the luxury of choice,” he hummed. 

“You have a phone?! Hold on, why am I surprised by that you live in a phone box,” Ariel muttered. “But, still. You have an actual phone.”

“Yeah, and one of these days I’ll decide to give you the number,” the Doctor said and Ariel rolled her eyes.

“And there goes the trust I tried to build learning about you,” Ariel moaned.

The Doctor chuckled and picked up the phone on the console. “Hello? Oh, hold on, hold on. Chan Chiu, slow down,” he huffed. “Immortal spirits?” He frowned. “A stone monkey? What’s going on?” There was a brief pause. “Can we be there in ten minutes?” He prompted, looking up and raising a brow at Ariel.

Ariel raised her hands in surrender and stared at the Doctor with wide eyes. “Don’t leave it up to me! I’ll chicken out! I’m actually a complete coward in disguise.”

The Doctor laughed and shook his head. “Alright, alright, we’ll be there,” he sighed. He hung up the phone and typed the coordinates into the console. “Hold on!” He exclaimed.

“Wait, my hot chocolate!” Ariel screamed as the Tardis rocked with the movement of flight and the Doctor just laughed as they dematerialized.


	7. The Boring Trip

In nineteenth-century China, Ariel and the Doctor met with Chan Chiu, his wife, and his young nephew Li. They went after a Stone Monkey, who Chan Chiu claimed held a demon spirit with immortal spirits under its control, with Chan’s nephew. They didn’t last long within the caves before they were all taken prisoner and the Doctor marched forth and, despite Ariel’s subtle pleading to do anything but, he challenged the Stone Monkey for the future of the Earth. Thankfully, the Doctor won and they managed to drive the Stone Monkey and the immortal spirits away from Earth.

From there they went to Switzerland in eighteen-sixteen and Ariel absolutely lost it when the encountered Mary Shelley to the Doctor’s complete and utter embarrassment. The Doctor had to place his hand over her mouth and keep an arm wrapped around her waist to stop her from running up to Mary Shelley and screaming a million different questions. Not that he managed to hold her back.

_ The Doctor winced when he felt something moist slide across his hand. He pulled his hand away and narrowed his eyes at it while Ariel beamed at him. _

_ “Did you seriously just lick my hand?” the Doctor frowned. _

_ “Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Ariel smirked. “Now, let me tell Mary Shelley how much I love her before I combust!” She snapped, spinning around and marching through the snow towards the author. _

_ “No!” the Doctor hollered, running up and grabbed her hands. He pulled his arms behind her and held her back even as she continued to march, despite her marching being stuck in a single spot. “Mary Shelley hasn’t written Frankenstein, yet.” _

_ “Oh, who cares?!” Ariel exclaimed. “Can’t I tell her she’s incredible and my favorite author?!” _

_ “She hasn’t written anything yet!” the Doctor barked. “Her first book is next year!” _

_ Ariel groaned and plopped down in the snow. “Fine!” She snapped. “But I’m holding a grudge because you made me miss a meeting with Mary Shelley.” _

_ “It’s the wrong year, what was I supposed to do?!” _

_ “You have a time machine!” _

While they were in Switzerland they also encountered a giant creature called the Zzazik who was responsible for a large and dangerous storm. The Doctor and Ariel trapped it in sparks of electricity and accidentally knocked Mary Shelley unconscious by the sparks of electricity. 

They left without an introduction despite Ariel’s best intentions and although it was another victory for the record books, Ariel would always remember it as the time the Doctor kept her from meeting her favorite author.

If she could do anything right, it was hold a grudge

After the Mary Shelley incident, the Doctor refused to give her the choice on where to go next because she kept yelling Mary Shelley. Instead, he began tracking a Sea-Rah that had fallen through a hole in time. Their tracking lead them to a beach in England where he and Ariel saved a young boy named Lewis from the Sea-Rah. They captured the Sea-Rah but were unable to take it home, so instead, the Doctor relocated it to a planet called Kerun Za in the twenty-ninth century. Then, they both took Lewis back home to England.

Seeing as the Mary Shelley wound was still raw, the Doctor chose where they went again and Ariel couldn’t have been angrier at the decision he made.

“Seriously?!” Ariel snapped. “A bloody cooperation?! We could have gone to some supernova and spent time there but you want to take me to a business on a rubbish bit of Earth.”

“Oi!” the Doctor exclaimed. “This could be very exciting,” he insisted. “From what I’ve been reading the name Adipose might be more than a coincidence.”

Ariel spun around, spreading her arms and allowing the large sleeves of her baggy floral shirt to blow in the wind. Along with her large floral button-up shirt, she donned a small pair of black shorts, knee-high socks, and flats. Normally, she’d have her short brown hair tied up but considering how tremendously boring this trip seemed, she decided to leave it down.

“Okay, so what?” Ariel frowned. “Little pudgy alien babies are wandering around the diet place? That hardly seems like a substantial threat.”

“Oh, I’m willing to bet it goes deeper than that,” the Doctor hummed.

Ariel raised a brow and smirked curiously at him. “How much?”

“What?”

“You said you’re willing to bet it’s more than some innocent alien babies wandering around so put your money where your mouth is,” Ariel shrugged. 

“Well, if I gambled on that, it'd be an abuse of my privileges of space travel,” the Doctor huffed.

“Fifteen quid?” Ariel implored, nudging him on the arm as they walked.

The Doctor snorted and shook his head. “You are going to be so sorry when you lose, I know you don’t have any money on you.”

“Oh, we’re in modern England I can bloody fetch it,” Ariel moaned. “But what makes you so sure you’ll win?”

“You forgot, I know my alien intelligences,” the Doctor hummed, beaming down at her.

“Yeah, and I know when you’re full of rubbish,” Ariel retorted. “Are we going to the front entrance?”

“Nah, that’s boring. Let’s sneak in the back.”

Ariel snickered and shook her head as she followed the Doctor to the back door of the building. He glanced around to ensure nobody was watching as he fished his sonic screwdriver out of his suit pocket.

“Isn’t this breaking an entering?” Ariel frowned.

“Psh,” the Doctor dismissed as he sonicked the door. “What am I breaking?” He shrugged. 

Right after he said this, sparks shot out of the door and the Doctor flushed pink while Ariel barked out a laugh.

“That!” She exclaimed while he rolled his eyes and shoved the door open for her.

Together they headed through the building receiving very few strange looks, which Ariel counted as a total win. However, when they walked past one of the guards the Doctor did take the precaution of flashing the psychic paper. 

“John Smith and Jane Brown, Health and Safety,” he told the man and received nothing more than a vacant nod for his troubles.

Once they were out of earshot, Ariel slapped the Doctor lightly across the chest and raised a brow at him. “Jane Brown?” She implored. “Where did that come from?”

“Oh, it’s just an alias,” the Doctor shrugged. “Having a recognizable name can be handy if you need to get into a system or just need to get an irritating military-type off your back.”

“But I have a name,” Ariel frowned.

“Yes, but seeing as we’re investigating this place it wouldn’t do well to have them looking up your real name now would it?” the Doctor implored and Ariel rolled her eyes.

“Okay, maybe you’re right,” Ariel grumbled. “But I’m still holding onto the idea that you’re overreacting about this place.”

The Doctor chuckled and shook his head. “Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?”

The pair of them continued through the building until they came across a large sign that stopped them in their tracks.

_ Adipose Industries presentation taking place within the lecture hall. _

The Doctor turned to Ariel with a raised brow and childish grin while Ariel just rolled her eyes. 

“Yes, alright, let’s go,” Ariel huffed and the Doctor laughed.

“As always, love the enthusiasm,” he hummed.

Ariel giggled and skipped up beside him as they made their way through the building to the lecture hall. When they arrived, Ariel was about to head straight through the double doors when the Doctor held out his arm and stopped her. 

He pointed towards a small sign on the wall with an arrow pointing to their right towards the projection room.

“This way might be easier to handle. No odd looks,” the Doctor suggested.

Ariel furrowed her brows at him for a moment. “Why you don’t just use that psychic paper for any issue you might have, I’ll never know,” she sighed. “Regardless, it’s your choice. Your money after all,” she reminded him.

He chuckled and shook his head as she turned to the right and started up the staircase leading to the projection room with him following right behind.

At the top of the staircase, there was a door with a sign reading ‘projection room’ and another door to their right cracked open with mops and brooms toppling over each other inside of it.

The duo headed inside the projection room finding it a small cramped area with a film projector at the very center and shelves along the wall with miscellaneous items Ariel couldn’t even imagine the needs for. Luckily, there were several folded chairs stacked up beside the film projector and the Doctor grabbed two for both of them.

Down in the lecture hall, there were several dozen people in the audience taking notes as a woman with short blonde hair, a suit, and glasses, gave a presentation to the rest of them.

“Adipose Industries, the twenty-first century way to lose weight. No exercise, no diet, no pain. Just lifelong freedom from fat. The Holy Grail of the modern age. And here it is. You just take one capsule. One capsule, once a day for three weeks, and the fat, as they say,” the woman clicked towards the film projector the Doctor and Ariel were sat on either side of.

The Doctor immediately stuffed his hand into his suit pocket and fished out his glasses, shoving them on his nose as the film took over and began giving a visual demonstration of these diet pills and their effects on people.

“The fact just walks away,” the narrator proclaimed on the screen.

The Doctor turned to Ariel with a raised brow and pointed look and Ariel rolled her eyes. 

“Alright, I’ll admit that is a little suspicious given what we’re here for but that could be harmless,” Ariel shrugged. “I’m not going to lie, I'm also a bit in denial because this is not a pretty picture we’re painting,” she confessed and the Doctor snorted.

A woman in the audience raised her hand as though she were in a classroom. Ariel couldn’t catch her face but spotted wild dark curls from behind. 

“Excuse me, Miss Foster. If I could?” the woman prompted. “I'm Penny Carter, science correspondent for The Observer. There are a thousand diet pills on the market, a thousand con men stealing people's money. How do we know the fat isn't going straight into your bank account?”

“Oh, Penny, if cynicism burnt up calories, we'd all be as thin as rakes,” the blonde lady, Miss Foster, scoffed. “But if you want the science, I can oblige.” She clicked towards the film projector once more and a different segment in the presentation began.

Ariel groaned as they got into the science discussion. She hated science and found it dreadfully dull. She failed nearly every science class she entered since she fell asleep in pretty much all of them.

With a soft sigh, she kicked her feet up and leaned back in her chair, strapping herself in for a long and dull ramble from the film.

“Adipose Industries. The Adipose capsule is composed of a synthesized mobilizing lipase, bound to a large protein molecule,” the narrator explained. “The mobilizing lipase breaks up the triglycerides stored in the adipose cells, which then enter-.”

The door to the projection room groaned as it opened before crashing into one of the shelves on the back wall and causing something to fall which also made Ariel jump up in her seat.

A man stood on the other side of the door, frowning at Ariel and the Doctor. The Doctor sighed deeply and pulled his psychic paper out of his coat and flashed it at the man.

“Health and Safety,” he answered quickly.

Ariel’s eyes widened and she shoved the psychic paper down before the man could get a good look at it. Health and Safety didn’t explain why they were up in the projection room.

“Er, film department,” Ariel shrugged.

The man didn’t seem convinced but Ariel assumed he must have some underlying hatred of his job because he didn’t bother to look into them further. He simply shrugged, nodded, and headed out of the projection room.

Once he was gone, Ariel turned back to the Doctor and smacked him lightly. “Health and Safety?!”

“Oh leave me alone,” the Doctor grumbled. “I came prepared for one thing and one thing only.”

“Says the man who suggested we come up here in the first place,” Ariel scoffed and the Doctor rolled his eyes.

“You’re very tetchy in office buildings,” the Doctor remarked.

“I’m very tetchy whenever I’m around you,” Ariel corrected. “Get with the program, Mister I’ve Got A Future Girlfriend Who Sends Me Messages.”

“Oh for the last time, the messages weren’t from a future girlfriend,” the Doctor moaned.

“Mmhm,” Ariel said, her tone giving away her lack of faith in the Doctor’s words. “So you keep telling me, but frankly I’ll believe it when I see it,” she shrugged.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and with that, they returned their attention to the presentation.

“One hundred percent legal, one hundred percent effective,” Miss Foster assured the audience as the film powered down.

“But, can I just ask,” Penny interjected. “How many people have taken the pills to date?” 

“We've already got one million customers within the Greater London area alone, but from next week, we start rolling out nationwide,” Miss Foster beamed, the bright confident smile of an experienced saleswoman. “The future starts here. And Britain will be thin.”

Ariel raised a brow at the Doctor. “Say what you will about the odd name and the strange customer complaints, but this place seems completely normal to me.”

“We’ve got to dig a bit deeper,” the Doctor sighed. “I’m not satisfied with the pitch from a saleswoman telling me all I need to know.”

Ariel rolled her eyes at him and slowly took a deep breath. “I’d like to argue but you’ve sort of got a point there.”

 The Doctor grinned at her before jumping out of his seat and folding it up to place it back where it had been. Ariel, on the other hand, folded up her chair and placed it against the wall closest to her.

The Doctor held out his hand and she gladly took it as they headed out of the projection room and down the stairs.

“So, where to next?” Ariel asked. “What will satisfy the little voice in the back of your head enough for us to go and see Mary Shelley?”

The Doctor snorted and rolled his eyes. “I knew that was going to come up at some point during this trip,” he sighed and Ariel giggled. “Just so you know the fact that we left without an introduction inspired her to write  _ Frankenstein _ ,” he hummed.

“How on Earth are those two things related?” Ariel scoffed. “And how can you even know that?!”

“Well, think about it. She got knocked unconscious by the electricity we trapped the Zzazik in and she woke up in the aftermath of a storm in a cold desolate piece of Switzerland. Remind you of anybody in the book?” the Doctor prompted with a raised brow.

“Yeah, okay, I see how that can make Captain Walton’s story and the monster coming alive through electricity, but the way you said that made it sound as though you knew for a fact we inspired the book.”

“Oh, I do,” the Doctor nodded. “She wrote in one of her letters that her experiences in Switzerland were part of what inspired the idea when Lord Byron brought up a challenge for everybody to write their own ghost story.”

Ariel’s face fell as she gradually processed the Doctor’s words and bit by bit a large grin began to slide across her face until she barked out an excited giggle making the Doctor jump. “I was part of the inspiration behind  _ Frankenstein _ !” Ariel exclaimed and the Doctor laughed.

“Oh, yeah, announce that a bit louder will you?” 

Ariel winced and burned bright pink as she glanced around to make sure nobody was watching her strangely. “I’m sorry, that’s my favorite horror story, okay?” Ariel huffed. “Just like Agatha Christie is the only mystery writer I read.”

“Oh, well I can’t argue with you on that one,” the Doctor hummed. “She’s bloody brilliant. She’s gotten me more times than I’d like to admit,” he confessed.

“I know right?!” Ariel laughed. “Now, where the bloody hell are we going?” She asked.

“Call center. We need to get a list of their customers,” the Doctor explained. “Maybe, then we can talk to people face to face and find out what’s going on, rather than taking the word of a saleswoman or online reviews.”

“You mean find out if something is going on,” Ariel corrected with a raised finger.

They rounded the corner as the Doctor followed the signs posted around the building, guiding them where they needed to be, while they talked.

“You know you really should just own up now that you’re wrong so it’ll be easier in the long run,” the Doctor warned her with a small smirk. “Might save yourself the embarrassment.”

“Oh, shove off,” Ariel moaned and the Doctor laughed at her. “Mark me, even if you’re right about this place I will hold onto my way of thinking until the very last second possible,” she insisted and the Doctor chuckled.

“Suit yourself,” he hummed.

With that, they turned and headed into the call center through the large double doors. 

The call center was a wide room with dozens of cubicles, each filled with somebody either on the end of a ringing phone or cold calling some poor helpless individual to try and get them on the bloody diet pills. 

The Doctor waltzed through the call center, glancing around and looking for something Ariel couldn’t work out until eventually, he seemed to decide on a cubicle to hop inside. 

Inside the cubicle, he had chosen was a woman with dark hair pulled into a bun a gray suit and a bright smile as she spoke to whoever was on the other end of the phone. 

The Doctor leaped into the cubicle and flashed his psychic paper at the woman. “John Smith, Jane Brown, Health and Safety. Don’t mind us,” he whispered to the woman.

Ariel pulled two rolling chairs from the wall opposite to the woman for her and the Doctor to plop down into while the woman turned in her chair and eyed the Doctor like he was a piece of meat.

“We deliver within three working days,” she told the person on the other end while she smirked at the Doctor. She fished into her desk and pulled out two information packs and two golden pendants. She handed each to both the Doctor and Ariel with a smile and nod.

“The box comes with 21 days worth of pills, a full information pack, and our special free gift, an Adipose Industries pendant,” the woman explained to the customer on the phone.

Ariel slid the information pack back to the woman as the Doctor did the same. She fiddled with the pendant for a few minutes before growing bored and dropping it back on top of the information pack while the Doctor continued to mess with it.

“It's made of eighteen-carat gold, and it's yours for free.” She paused and smirked as she listened to the person on the other end. “No, we don't give away pens, sorry. No, I can't make an exception, no.”

The woman finished up the call eventually and the Doctor stuffed the pendant into his pocket before turning his attention to her. “Thanks, but can we get a list of your customers printed off? We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

“We are?” Ariel frowned. The Doctor shot her a look and she turned away with wide eyes. “I mean, we are!” She exclaimed, her tone not at all convincing but a save the woman didn’t bother to question.

“Sure,” the woman shrugged. “Is there anything else you’d need or just the list?” She asked as she turned her focus to her computer to pull up the list.

“No, just the list thanks,” the Doctor sighed.

The woman’s posture fell and Ariel could have sworn she looked slightly disappointed making Ariel fight back a snort of amusement. The woman seemed to fancy the Doctor and she couldn’t help but pity her. That woman didn’t have to live with the Doctor. She had no idea who she was fancying.

Ariel cleared her throat. “Erm, is there just an office printer that we should be heading to once that gets out?”

The woman seemed distracted and for about a minute, didn’t even bother to answer Ariel until Ariel tapped her on her shoulder and the woman jumped as though she had been shocked. 

“What? Oh, er, yes, there’s a printer out by the plant. You should be able to pick up the list from there.”

The Doctor rose up from his seat as he tried to spot the printer. 

The Doctor furrowed his brows and pointed to the first printer he saw. “That’s the printer, there?”

“By the plant, yeah.”

“Brilliant,” the Doctor sighed, plopping down in his seat.

“Hold on, has it got enough ink?” Ariel frowned. “Because I know back at my house I’d send essays or some homework over to the printer and then at the very last second it’ll tell me it’s out of ink.”

“Yeah, our custodian Jimbo checks the printers for ink every morning,” the woman assured her with a nod.

The Doctor rose up to his feet again to peer at the printer. “Has it got paper?” He frowned.

“Yeah, Jimbo keeps it stocked,” the woman nodded once again.

Ariel stood up alongside the Doctor to try and spot the printer while the woman from the presentation, Miss Foster, entered the room with two guards. 

“Excuse me, everyone, if I could have your attention!” Miss Foster called out to the room, clapping her hands at all the workers.

The workers in the room all stood and the Doctor and Ariel watched the scene for a few moments before the Doctor slowly lowered out of sight. Ariel didn’t think to do the same until the Doctor rose back up and shoved her down by her head, forcing a surprised yelp out of her before he clapped his hand over her mouth and stopped the sound.

Ariel furrowed her brows at the Doctor while he just watched her with wide eyes and Miss Foster carried on, unaware of the brief disturbance. 

“On average, you're each selling forty Adipose packs per day. It's not enough. I want one hundred sales per person per day. And if not, you'll be replaced. Because if anyone's good in trimming the fat, it's me. Now. Back to it,” Miss Foster snapped. With that, she marched around past them out of the call center.

Once she was gone, the Doctor took his hand off Ariel’s mouth and she smacked him. “Never do that again,” she huffed. “Your hand smells like cat piss.”

“Oh, lovely,” the Doctor grumbled, wiping his hand on his trousers. “If that’s because you licked it you’ll be hearing an earful.”

Ariel’s face morphed until it looked like she was going to puke. “I don’t even know how to properly respond to that without vomiting so I’m going to tune you out and pretend you never said that.”

The Doctor snorted and shook his head as he turned his attention back to the woman. “ _ Anyway _ , if you could print that off. Thanks.”

The woman clicked the button to send the list to the printer and Ariel headed out of the cubicle. The Doctor stood up to follow Ariel but was promptly yanked back down by the woman as she handed him a slip of paper.

“Oh, what’s that?” the Doctor frowned.

“I’m acting under the assumption that you and the girl who doesn’t have a clue how to dress for a job aren’t together,” the woman proclaimed. “That’s my phone number,” she said, nodding to the paper with a smile.

Ariel covered her mouth to conceal her snort of amusement as the Doctor’s face fell. She didn’t even mind the jab at her attire considering the woman was technically right and if she wore this sort of outfit to a proper job she’d be fired on the spot.

“What for?” the Doctor muttered, tilting his head like an innocent child unaware of how the world worked.

Ariel wanted to howl with laughter but kept her hand over her mouth to spare the Doctor and this woman’s dignity. She had painted him as an intergalactic playboy as long as she had known him but when it came down to it he was utter rubbish at flirting with other people.

“Health and Safety,” the woman smirked. “You be health, I'll be safety,” she practically purred.

Once the Doctor saw what was going on, his entire demeanor shifted and it looked like he couldn’t get out of there fast enough as he slowly clambered out of his chair and kept his body as far from the woman as possible.

“Ah. Ah. But that contravenes er, paragraph five, subsection C,” the Doctor stammered. “Sorry.”

After prattling off the poor and anxiety-ridden excuse, he flew out of the cubicle to the sounds of Ariel’s laughter.

“And here I was thinking you were some bloody space playboy,” Ariel scoffed. “You can’t even flirt properly.”

“I can flirt!” the Doctor protested. 

“You act like you’ve never flirted a day in your life!” Ariel exclaimed with a laugh.

“I’m nine-hundred and four, of course, I’ve flirted,” the Doctor scoffed.

“Oh, so it’s just been a bit is what you’re saying,” Ariel nodded and the Doctor stared at her hard for a good minute before rolling his eyes and groaning. 

“Humans,” he huffed. “We could have a crisis on our hands and all you lot ever want to do is ask personal questions.”

“There’s always a crisis on our hands,” Ariel moaned. “And I’m still not convinced we have one here because all we achieved coming into this call center was you rejecting some poor woman working in this bloody dump.”

“Are you saying you’d have rathered I say yes?” the Doctor frowned.

“Sure,” Ariel shrugged. “After all who knows? She could be your future girlfriend,” she proposed. She spun around and smirked at the Doctor while he rolled his eyes at the mention of the woman he had received the message from. 

Ariel walked backward until she reached the printer and her face fell at the empty tray. “Er, did you see that woman hit print?” She asked, pushing the tray the papers were supposed to slide out of upward and glancing around for the missing list of customers.

“Yeah, I saw,” the Doctor confirmed. “Why, is the list-?”

“It’s missing,” Ariel nodded, finishing his thought for him as she walked to the other side of the printer and looked around for their paper.

The Doctor groaned and got on his hands and knees to see if the paper had slid under the printer to no avail. He popped back up and his eyes flicked towards the cubicle they had just left, his entire posture being weighed down by the very sight.

Ariel followed his line of sight and sighed softly. “Do you want me to go over there and talk to her?”

“Please,” the Doctor requested and Ariel smiled warmly at him. She patted him quickly on the arm. 

“Say no more,” she hummed. With that, she headed back to the cubicle and gripped onto the wall, chuckling lightly and beaming at the woman as she turned to raise a brow at Ariel. “Hi, me again,” she smiled.

* * *

After Ariel got the information from the woman, she and the Doctor headed over to one of the first addresses on the list: Roger Davey. 

“Okay, whatever we get out of this meeting determines whether or not we stay, deal?” Ariel prompted, raising a brow at the Doctor.

“Done,” the Doctor hummed. “But if something does happen outside of the meeting we’ll know,” he promised her as he pulled some strange contraption out of his pocket to show her. It looked like some strange three-lobed gizmo.

“What the hell is that?” Ariel frowned.

“It’s my little gizmo,” the Doctor smiled. “It goes ding when there’s stuff.”

Ariel snorted and shook her head. “What sort of stuff?”

The Doctor’s face fell. “I dunno,” he mumbled. “Just stuff. Odd stuff. Stuff that shouldn’t be around these parts.”

Ariel fought back a laugh as she smirked up at him. “Oh, so it can pick up things like invasive species? You got a gizmo that’s gonna tell us when the wrong breed of snake is wandering around England?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes as they marched up the pathway to Roger Davey’s front door together. He rang the doorbell and sighed deeply. “How did I know you would find some way to use my, frankly brilliant, gizmo against me?” He huffed.

“That’s just how this partnership works,” Ariel hummed, chuckling lightly.

The door swung open and a man with short curly hair in a sweater vest looked over the pair of them with raised brows. “Can I help you?” He prompted.

“Mister Roger Davey? We’re calling on behalf of Adipose Industries. Just need to ask you a few questions,” the Doctor explained, flashing his psychic paper at the man.

“Oh, well then do come in,” Roger Davey nodded to the pair of them, making room so they could step inside his house. “The sitting room is first on the left. I could make us some tea if you’re like?” He proposed.

“No need, thanks,” the Doctor shook his head.

“I’m alright,” Ariel nodded. “But thanks for the offer.”

“Right then,” Roger sighed. He headed into the sitting room after them and plopped down on the sofa against the back wall. Ariel sat down in a chair to the right of Roger while the Doctor remained standing, stuffing his hands in his pockets and pacing the floor.

“So, Mister Davey,” the Doctor began. “Why don’t we start with you telling us how long you’ve been on the Adipose pills and what effects you’ve seen from it?”

“I've been on the pills for two weeks now,” Roger answered. “I've lost fourteen kilos.”

“That’s the same amount every day?” the Doctor prompted with a small frown.

“One kilo exactly,” Roger nodded. “You wake up, and it's disappeared overnight. Well, technically speaking, it's gone by ten past one in the morning.”

“Ten past one in the morning?” Ariel echoed, furrowing her brows as she studied Roger trying to work out whether or not he was lying.

“What makes you say that?” the Doctor wondered.

“That's when I get woken up,” Roger shrugged. “Might as well weigh myself at the same time.”

“What wakes you up every night at ten past one in the morning?” Ariel asked.

“Well, it’s the burglar alarm.”

“Hang on, your burglar alarm has been going off every day at ten past one in the morning exactly?” the Doctor summarized with a raised brow. “That’s odd now, isn’t it?” He implored, turning to Ariel with a smirk.

Ariel rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll admit that is a bit strange.”

“It is driving me mad,” Roger huffed, nodding at the Doctor’s statement. “Ten minutes past one, every night, bang on the dot without fail, the burglar alarm goes off. I've had experts in, I've had it replaced, I've even phoned Watchdog. But no, ten past one in the morning, off it goes.”

“But with no burglars?” the Doctor assumed.

“Nothing,” Roger nodded again. “I’ve given up looking.”

The Doctor narrowed his eyes and a strange look passed over the Doctor’s face that Ariel had noticed a few times before. He got that look whenever he was realizing something or noticing something that the rest of them hadn’t even bothered to consider. Ariel winced at the sight of that very face. He had realized something that neither she nor Roger even stopped to think about which meant they would be stuck in modern-day England for much longer than she wanted.

“Tell me, Roger. Have you got a cat flap?” the Doctor asked and Ariel frowned. 

How did a cat flap come into this equation?

“Yes,” Roger said. “I can show you if you’d like. It’s on the back door.”

“Please,” the Doctor said, waving Roger forward so he might lead the way.

Roger got up and lead the Doctor and Ariel to his back door where sure enough there was a small square cat flap at the bottom of the door. The trio knelt down and the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to lift open the cat flap and peer out of it.

“It was here when I bought the house,” Roger explained. “I've never bothered with it, really. I'm not a cat person,” he sighed.

“No, I've met cat people,” the Doctor hummed. “You're nothing like them.”

Ariel had a funny feeling the Doctor’s version of ‘cat people’ was not just talking about which animal people preferred as a pet, but she decided to question him on that at a later date. She was certain whatever cat people the Doctor knew had a long story attached to them.

“Is that what it is, though?” Roger implored with a raised brow. “Cats getting inside the house?”

“No,” Ariel moaned. “As much as I hate to admit it, you would likely see more signs of cats if they were getting into your house every single night and even if you didn’t cats are rarely going to enter or exit a house at such an exact time as ten past one every night. It can’t be cats.”

“Then what is it?” 

“Well, thing about cat flaps is, they don't just let things in, they let things out as well,” the Doctor hummed, a smirk etched across his face at the signs of Ariel beginning to admit she was wrong.

“Like what?” Roger asked, hardly noticing the Doctor’s enthusiasm.

“The fat just walks away,” the Doctor murmured, peering out of the cat flap as though he might catch sight of the fat waltzing through Roger’s backyard.

The Doctor jumped up suddenly and beamed at Roger as the man slowly climbed to his feet. “Well, I think we’ve gotten all we need to know,” he proclaimed. “Ariel?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ariel huffed. “You were right, I was wrong,” she mumbled. Just because she lost the bet didn’t mean she couldn’t be bitter over it all. After all, she knew nothing was going to stop the Doctor from lording this victory over her so she wanted to hold bitterness in her heart for as long as possible.

The Doctor snorted and began heading back through Roger’s house to the front door.

“Is that it?” Roger asked with a small frown. “You’ve nothing more to ask about?”

“Nope,” the Doctor shrugged. “You’ve told us all we need to know,” he assured the man. Roger held the door open for the pair of them and the Doctor and Ariel headed through it once more, the Doctor was beaming while Ariel was sulking. “Well, thanks for your help,” he said, turning back to Roger and shaking his hand. “Tell you what, maybe you could lay off the pills for a week or so,” he suggested.

All of a sudden, the Doctor’s three-lobed gizmo beeped making both him and Ariel jump.

“Oh! Got to go. Sorry!” the Doctor exclaimed, grabbing Ariel’s hand and taking off down the street before she could even open her mouth to comment on the gizmo going off.

He dragged her down the street as he followed the directions of the red lights moving through his gizmo.

“What is it?!” Ariel climbed. “What’s happening?!”

“I dunno!”

“Well, what are we following?!”

“Don’t know!”

“Do you know how far it is away from us?”

“Nope,” the Doctor shrugged.

Ariel rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m so glad I’ve got you,” she huffed as he skidded to a stop at a crossroads and began smacking the gizmo.

“I bet you are,” the Doctor laughed. He hit the gizmo a few more times before it began working again and he took off running once more. “Come on!” He cried.

“Oh, I hate you so much,” Ariel grumbled, shaking her head at the man before she bolted off running after him.

They rounded several corners and the Doctor had to stop more than once to rattle the gizmo or smack it but eventually, they rounded a corner and without even looking where he was going, the Doctor headed straight into traffic as he followed the directions of the gizmo.

“Doctor!” Ariel screamed. She dragged him out of the street by the back of his coat just as a large black van blared its horn at him whilst speeding past.

Suddenly, the gizmo turned in where it was leading the Doctor and Ariel and the red lights pointed directly to the retreating van. Ariel and the Doctor looked at each other with wide eyes before they both scrambled to run after the van.

Seeing that they couldn’t catch the van taking the same route it was driving through, the Doctor grabbed Ariel’s hand and tugged her down a side street. They both ran as fast and as hard as they could, sweat beginning to collect along Ariel’s hairline as they moved. 

However, the signal on the Doctor’s gizmo began dying down. The red lights started to fade and the beeping it had been emitting was falling flat until it dropped into the ordinary beeping it would make if it were scanning the area.

The Doctor and Ariel skidded to a stop and the Doctor shook the gizmo a few times, smacking it once again, but to no avail. The gizmo couldn’t get a signal any longer and the Doctor’s face fell. 

“Well, there goes that chance,” the Doctor sighed.

The pair of them turned around and headed back down the street to make their way to where the Doctor had parked the Tardis.

“Back to square one, is it?” Ariel assumed.

“Not yet,” the Doctor hummed. “We’ve still got that pendant we were given at the call center. I can scan it and see if I can get anything from that. Plus, we’ve still got the whole of the building to investigate.”

“Right,” Ariel nodded. “I can’t believe you got this.”

The Doctor chuckled softly. “You owe me fifteen quid.”

“Oh, I regret making that bet already,” Ariel moaned. “Fine,” she huffed. “After this is all over I’ll drop by my Mum’s and get the money. I’ve been needing to tell her where I am for a while now so there’s no time like the present.”

The Doctor snorted. “Whatever suits you,” he hummed. “As long as I get my money.”

“Oh, yes, it’s all about the money, isn’t it?” Ariel grumbled.

“If I had lost it would be.”

“Yes, well you won, didn’t you?” Ariel retorted. “Never you mind, I’ll find some way to explain to my Mum that I owe fifteen quid to a man I barely know before I go over there. Until then if you lord this over me I will smack you,” she swore and the Doctor laughed.

“Alright then.”

With that, they headed back into the Tardis again to get ready for another day with Adipose industries.


End file.
